Surprising Addition to the Child Dystopian Genre

Rating: 7/10 (14 February 2015)

I watched The Maze Runner to see how much like or unlike Hunger Games it would be. By the trailer alone it looked very akin to the few, already released, dystopian flicks featuring teens (ala Hunger Games, Divergent, and even Ender's Game).
I was pleasantly surprised that the movie was distinguished enough from the aforementioned movies and yet still good. As you probably guessed, the movie is about a maze. The movie starts off pretty intense. You are immediately thrust into the impending situation. It bodes well for the flow of the movie because you are experiencing everything as the main character, Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), experiences it.
The movie moves along at a nice pace and there was one particularly refreshing aspect. Most movies featuring a number of boys and teens have the typical issues: alpha male, the click, the outcasts, the new guy, et al. In this movie you saw these young men making a concerted effort to work together and put their egos to the side in order to survive. Thomas broke up the structure they had to some degree, but it wasn't without good cause.
I liked the movie. It had a nice balance of intensity and mystery. The actors, and more importantly, the characters, were bearable. Not very often you see something like that.