An entertaining joyride with a lackluster story.

Rating: 7/10 (12 September 2014)

Before i start the review i would just like to say i have not read the book and i can not do a book to film analysis, sorry for any inconvenience.
This is a spoiler free review.
The Maze Runner is directed by Wes Ball and stars Dylan O'Brian, Kaya Scodelario, Will Poulter and Thomas Brodie-Sangster. The Maze Runner is based off of James Dashner's novel by the same name. The movie is about a boy named Thomas that wakes up in an elevator. Thomas's memory has been erased and the only thing he can remember is his name. Thomas wakes up in what is known by the local populace as The Glade. In The Glade the boys that live there (called Gladers) have created a home for themselves with structural rules and where everyone does their part to help out. The main people are the runners, these people are the ones that run out into the maze and try to find an escape route and attempt to map it out. But they soon begin to realize its more than a maze.
The first two acts of this film were absolutely amazing, Wes Ball really knows how to bring tension into this film especially in the chase and Griever sequences were you feel a lot of awe and suspense as you watch the characters run in and around corners from the Grievers and the maze itself. The biggest problem about this film however is the last act, the last act was just absolutely terrible and totally ruined the experience for the entire movie. Another problem was all of the cliché's and predictability throughout the movie which took me out of the experience constantly. There are some really nice action scenes in this movie with great camera angles that truly capture the suspense and excel the experience, there is also unfortunately 3 scenes i noticed with shaky cam though which again took me out of the experience.
Most of the actors are generally unknown but the acting was alright with no one really pulling an amazing performance or even something noteworthy, however Kaya Scodelario's character has this Kirsten Stewart look to her which was kinda annoying. The main character played by Dylan O'Brian was alright however in some parts of the film his acting became more like Shia LaBeouf's in transformers. Will Poulter's performance was probably the only good one in the entire movie as i truly felt that he portrayed his character really well.
The VFX teams deserve some recognition for their work on capturing the shear size and terror of not only the giant walls but also the terrifying scary grievers. The walls are massive, frightening, unpredictable and scary. The grievers on the other hand are better left not talked about believe me the less you know the better.
I would recommend you go see this film, its actually quite good maybe even a bit underrated. Its a fun and enjoyable film to watch but under the surface its an okay film with a high predictability/cliché rate. I'd recommend you see this film with a bunch of friends to possibly enjoy the experience more because when you look at it from an entertainment point of view this film defiantly delivers, but when you look at it from a critique point of view you'll slightly less enjoy the film for what it is. My score 7.5/10 or ★★★