** This is a mostly spoiler free Scorch Trials movie review so unless you live under a rock and have never seen the trailer – in which case you won’t know what I’m talking about anyway – you’re all set.**
The Scorch Trials is a 131-minute chaotic sprint from start to finish, so strap on your yoga pants and prepare for the anxiety attacks.
The Scorch is Hell
The director, Wes Ball, made it no secret he planned on the characters being tortured during this second film. He likened the movie to Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back … you know, the one where Luke lost an appendage, found out his dad was a sociopath and Han was frozen in freakin’ carbonite!* Let’s just say that Wes Ball delivered. The Maze Runner kids did not look glamorous on the run a la Tris’s somehow perfectly coifed mane and eye makeup in Insurgent. They looked sweaty, hungry, smelly and sun beaten. At one point Teresa’s lips looked so dry and cracked I had an instinct to put Chapstick on in the theatre. I was also inordinately thirsty through the entire film … sympathy pains.
Shooting was no vacation on an Italian riviera either. Filming was located in the New Mexico desert where nighttime temperatures dropped rapidly, sometimes into the single digits. Ki Hong Lee got appendicitis. Kaya Scodelario had kidney failure. Dexter Darden was hospitalized with sickle cell anemia. Then Dylan O’Brien contracted the flu, was out for two days, and came back only to break a leg in the middle of a scene. The scene was used in the movie.
The Action Was On Point.
I don’t think even the most adamant Bruce Willis/Die Hard fan could claim this film is for sissies. The characters sprint, climb and generally flee in terror from agents of the mysterious WCKD organization, zombies and even other survivors. One particularly awesome sequence has O’Brien and newcomer Rosa Salazar – my new girl crush – climbing through the interior of a crumbling skyscraper that’s leaning against another building, being pursued by several “full-term” carnivorous Cranks.
During those action sequences the actors appeared legit. I have no doubt in my mind that Dylan O’Brien can actually fire a gun, run full tilt and slide under a door.
https://youtu.be/VDfOJoOqTkU
It Felt Like A Video Game
Specifically The Last of Us, which is no surprise since the director had his start as a visual effects artist. Most good games have a cut and paste format similar to YA dystopian movies. The characters are shoved into an “impossible weirdness” and they have to survive. Along the way they pick up tools, skills and allies. Those last two sentences are the most succinct summary of Scorch Trials that you’ll ever find. I was excited when they found the underground cache so they could load up their backpacks and head out into the Scorch. I was even more excited that they had pieces of pipe and baseball bats attached to their backpacks, because it’s JUST LIKE A VIDEO GAME!
Book to Movie Differences
You know we’ve written many posts about “accept it now!” wherein we talk about how you should build a bridge and get over it? Well, you should. Unless the change removes a steamy cave scene with an expectant baby-daddy Highlander and then that change should never be accepted.**
Scorch Trials makes most of our previous examples look like minor offenses. This movie laid waste to the original text and made something entirely new. But here’s the best part … it worked and it had the author’s blessing.
Are there differences between the Maze Runner movies and the books? Of course. Having been involved from the beginning of the process, I supported those changes from novel to film. It’s a simple fact: some things that work on the page don’t work in a movie, and vice versa. That’s just the way it is. And it’s okay! That’s the great news! No one is more familiar with the novels than I am, and yet the films let me live that world and the characters in a new way I never have before.” – James Dashner
The characters I love were there. The tone and world structure I am familiar with were there, but I did not know what was going to happen. It was crazy! The ending blew my mind! I was slack jawed and wide eyed just staring at the screen as the credits rolled. I mean … how did that freakin’ happen!?!? Truth bomb: My post movie tweet was actually favorited by an anxiety help group.
Bottom Line
This movie cannot stand alone. If you walk into the theatre having not watched The Maze Runner, you will be lost … in a maze of characters you don’t know nor care about and plot lines that are completely unintelligible. There are no redundant recaps of what has happened previously and, few if any, character building moments. It really helps if you’ve read the original book series by James Dashner and checked out the exclusive graphic novel prelude, because even the new characters, Jorge and Brenda, don’t have time to sit and chat. This movie starts and ends with all cylinders firing, leaving it a bit as the awkward middle child of the trilogy.
Still, there are some genuinely thrilling, scary, awesome moments in the Scorch Trials and it left me wanting more. More Minho. More Thomas. More Wes Ball camera work. I see big things coming from this director, cast and crew. I cannot wait to see how it all ends. The final film, The Death Cure, is set to start shooting in February.
After you’ve seen the flick, come back and share your own review!
READ MORE MAZE RUNNER: SCORCH TRIALS COVERAGE
*Star Wars tangent. Sorry.
**Outlander tangent. I’ll never be sorry.
