The Maze Runner
(2014)
(SPOILERS) The first hour of The Maze
Runner provides a set-up as arresting and intriguing as that of any
mainstream movie unhindered by the label “Young Adult”. It is less overtly
constricted by pandering to a niche (teen) audience, while clearly influenced
by the likes of William Golding’s Lord of
the Flies and Vincenzo Natali’s Cube.
Unfortunately it is also afflicted by the curse of the J J Abrams, or more
precisely Damon Lindelof. What makes it so involving cannot possible pay off.
Nevertheless, there’s good reason many greeted this as a
surprising breath of fresh air in the glutted Young Adult marketplace. There
were few expectations, and debut director Wes Ball does a determined job of
making the movie pacey and involving on a restricted budget. Perhaps crucially,
its issues are the precise opposite of 2014’s other YA franchise-starter, Divergent. There, anyone could see the
set-up didn’t make a blind bit of sense from reading a brief synopsis but was quite entertaining if you could move past it. In
contrast, The Maze Runner is all
about the mystery. So, by the time you realise it’s very nearly as silly as
that picture, it’s almost over and pushing for its sequel (it surely no
coincidence that of the three credited writers, T S Nowlin, Grant Pierce Myers
and Noah Oppenheim, one of them, Oppenheim, is working on one of the second Divergent sequel).
Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) wakes up in an elevator with no memory,
en route for a grassy clearing in maze complex where other boys are
imprisoned. Led by the longest resident
Alby (Aml Ameen) and Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) they have formed into a
regimented micro-society with individually delegated set tasks. Thomas is most
intrigued by the role of the maze runners, who leave the area in the morning
when the entrance to the maze opens and return in the evening just before it
closes.
Thomas’ arrival appears to set off ructions within the
delicately maintained order of the Glade (the grassy clearing), personified by
the aggression of Galley (Will Poulter), but further demonstrated when Thomas
takes it upon himself to enter the maze to help Minho (Ki Hong Lee) and a
wounded Alby. Just as they return (no one has ever survived a night in the
maze, thanks to vicious bioelectronics guardians known as Grievers), a girl
arrives by the elevator (Teresa, played by Kaya Scodelario), further upsetting
the applecart.
The Maze Runner is designed as a puzzle,
not just geographically but also in terms of the whys and wherefores of the
place and its subjects. Thomas dreams of experiments undertaken on him, and he
and Teresa remember each other’s names. The danger of this sort of deal is the one
that faced Lost, just in more
truncated form. The possibilities go unsatisfied by the reveal. So it is that
by the time the credits roll, The Maze Runner has crossed
from potentially the best YA to a merely so-so appetiser for a
take-it-or-leave-it movie series. Although, since it made a lot more than Divergent for a fraction of the cost,
its continuation is a no-brainer.
Newt goes to the trouble of laying out a series of rules and
place markers (no one has ever gone beyond the walls, no one has ever survived
a night etc.) that effectively identify Thomas as an ever popular chosen one
when he surmounts them. There are also cryptic elements (“It’s called the changing” “WICKED
is Good”) that are much less evocative once explained, and it’s
understandable questions don’t go away.
Like, why no one can scale the walls when there are clearly
vines going right the way up at least some of them (this is surely the most
repeated complaint about the obvious plot holes). Coming in a close second is that, for a movie
with this title, there is very little in the way of exploring the mazes. There was
a surely lot of potential for constantly changing structures and losing one’s
way in the labyrinth, but it doesn’t happen. It’s all a bit linear, alas.
Mainly, though, The Maze
Runner has been lacerated for affronting viewer intelligence. The reveal concerning
what this is all about makes no sense. The kids are immune to a virus that decimated
humanity (turning them into zombies of the 28
Days Later variety) after a solar flare devastated the Earth. They were
corralled into the maze as a test, to map out their brains’ responses to the
challenges within, and what makes them different. And so provide hope of a cure.
Okay…
It’s all a bit tenuous, isn’t it? The classic problem of a viable
concept with little means to thrash it into something satisfying and useable.
The subjects are both vital and wholly expendable (project leader Ava, Patricia
Clarkson, expresses surprise that so many survived). However you cut it, such
as making excuses based on other tests being conducted prior to entering the
maze, this precise scenario is entirely batty. The criteria and objectives won’t
be clarified because nothing would
satisfyingly explain them. Presumably this is also a very broad-spectrum test as,
aside from the three or four runners, the lads do sweet FA aside from a spot of
gardening.
There are a few decent reveals; that Thomas and Teresa were actually
testers (Gally was right to be suspicious; it’s notable that his approach of
safety first, not bucking the system and rule and order, is the closest the
movie comes to reaching for a critical subtext beyond its mystery box), the
fake-out of the terrorist attack on the facility. Others – Galley miraculously
appearing having traversed the maze solo – bear as little scrutiny as the
project goal. For a YA movie this is also impressively un-sentimental in
killing off sympathetic characters or in unpleasant ways. The Grievers are
familiar and generic, but Ball handles the maze sequences with energy and
flair; it’s a shame there aren’t more tight scrapes as the close shaves are gripping
when they come.
The young cast also give a good showing. The Maze Runner’s failings are purely material-based. The trio of
writers should probably have forsaken more of James Dashner’s novel than they
did. Dashner still seems to be banging the series out (his fifth is due next
year), so perhaps he’ll digest some of the criticisms and come up with
something coherent in time for finale. At least with this number of novels,
provided audiences don’t get bored and the series is curtailed, there should be
no need for Fox to follow the route of every other YA and split the last entry
in to two. Although, the same could have also been said of Harry Potter.
