Maze Runner: The Death Cure, a so-called sci-fi adventure thriller, is unscientific, unadventurous and far from thrilling. The long-delayed epic from Fox will satisfy the paltry number of fans curious how the series ends. Beyond that? It accomplishes nothing else.
Death Cure is the third installment of The Maze Runner series that began in 2014. This entry is a direct continuation and released this weekend after a series of delays. (Star Dylan O’Brien sustained injuries while filming in Spring 2016.)
It’s close to impossible to understand what’s going on if you haven’t seen both previous movies. Knowing both The Maze Runner and 2015’s The Scorch Trials are mandatory set-up to know the long, disjointed backstory.
Even more challenging is trying to remember who’s who among the enormous ensemble cast. Unfamiliar audiences sill be spending so much time trying to make the connections between characters and events they’ll be too distracted to enjoy watching the movie.
These details that make stories interesting are present. But without context, uninformed audiences can’t follow or appreciate them. This key different prevents anyone from making an emotional connection with the characters or on-screen action.
The actual story follows a band of teenagers in a post-apocalyptic world nearly destroyed by an incurable virus. In the last stand, they must storm the offices of a (possibly evil) corporation called WCKD before they begin human medical testing.
In between the short, pandering scenes of this unoriginal story, there are a number of other silly and unexplainable events. Why is a crane lifting a bus full of kids? How did an army of zombies appear and disappear within minutes?
Following the success of The Hunger Games franchise, Maze Runner is similarly desperate like the unfinished Divergent films to be exciting and fresh. And the harder the producers try, the more annoying their failure appears.
Writer James Dasher and Director Wes Ball have added absolutely nothing new or compelling to the genre of teenage sci-fi thrillers. Every spoken line, set piece, and shot looks stolen from another film that came before it.
In fact, the only really attractive thing on screen is the handsome, perfect ruggedness of leading man O’Brien. When given far superior scripts, he grounds his presence on camera with confidence and focus. His good looks, however, can’t sustain a two-and-a-half hour movie, and his appeal is even shorter for anyone over 30.
Devoid of all originality, purpose, cohesion and entertainment value, Maze Runner: The Death Cure is nothing more than a shallow blockbuster. The only potential audience for the film are teenagers obsessed with the ho-hum source novels.
Death Cure is a disgraceful, nauseating epic that is oblivious to how formulaic and boring it is. For any moviegoer with remedial expectations, the symptoms of awful filmmaking here make this incurable.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
1 out of 4 stars
14A, 2hrs 22mins. Sci-Fi Adventure Thriller.
Directed by Wes Ball.
Starring Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Aidan Gillen and Patricia Clarkson.
Now Playing at Film.Ca Cinemas, Cineplex Winston Churchill and Cineplex Oakville & VIP. Also in IMAX.
