Faithful to its own logic, at times intriguing, ultimately disappointing

Rating: 7/10 (9 January 2016)

Let us begin by noting that there is good acting to be had here in this youthful cast, not least from Dylan O'Brian, whose character Thomas fetches up in an ostensibly well-provided-for and even kind of idyllic "don't rock the boat and you'll be OK" world operating in accordance with its own set of internal rules, as well as - in effect - as a prison, given the external conditioning associated with gigantic walls and the imposing and unconquerable maze that exists beyond them. We the audience get increasing insights into this strange place at more or less the same time as an initially-disorientated Thomas does, and all is well done, intriguing and quite acceptable. The film effects seeking to persuade us that a gigantic (and nocturnally-mobile) maze could be built and could be defended by revolting biomechanical spider-like creatures are also good enough to serve their purpose. Hence so far, so good, and we immediately feel shades of some kind of hybrid between "Lord of the Flies" and "Cube". And although the cast is young enough, the makers are surprisingly un-squeamish about having them killed off in various ways. Alas, problems begin to appear, for characters and sceptical viewer alike, as too many questions of the "Why?" kind begin to be asked! Interestingly (and I really mean that), the character of Gally - played by Britain's Will Poulter with an American accent - actually DOESN'T want to question too much, taking a kind of "out of the frying pan into the fire" view, whereby the existence he's got for himself seems likely to be better than, not only life in the maze, but also life in the world of before and beyond. And it is with that kind of stuff that the snags with this film really begin. We are shown how new arrivals are disorientated, not even remembering their names for a day or so, and so we could live with the idea that they don't know too much about that before and beyond. They see what they have around them, and don't question because they don't remember anything - better or worse. Right? Wrong! As the film moves on, it becomes increasingly - embarrassingly - apparent that some gaps may actually reflect failures on the part of the film-makers to care enough to cover for all those awkward questions. Good-value as ever, Thomas Brodie-Sangster plays the bright second-in-command kind of kid called Newt, and in this case a British actor remains British, but nobody thinks to ask why that should be, when everyone else (even Will Poulter) is a Yank. Then suddenly a particularly youthful kid called Chuck (again well enough played, this time by Blake Cooper) mentions his parents, so then we ask why no kid at any point previously had mentioned parents, or questioned the fact that - for some reason - they had been separated from their parents. Surely the kids would have been far less content with the society they had built had they in fact been fully aware that they once lived elsewhere, had parents, and so on? The same applies to the abrupt appearance of a one-and-only female in their society, which does not create the kind of ructions one might have expected among hundreds of young males. While they in no way lament the lack of girls earlier, at the moment one arrives, the boys are fully aware that she is a girl. While there is some truth in the idea that "one does not miss what one has never had", it seems that they DID have some awareness that females of the species exist, yet ran a society of several years' standing well enough without them. This "selective memory loss" plot device seems very selective indeed, and seems to be covering a multitude of sins here, leaving the whole effect profoundly unsatisfying in comparison with, say, the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Conundrum" - in which the crew re-establish their identities, and their relative positions in the hierarchy, having indeed suffered near-total memory loss. If "The Maze Runner" fails to match up to episode 114 of "STTNG" (made in 1992) then we begin to wonder what we are doing watching it. As if all that were not enough, there is the certain expectation on the part of the film-goer (if not necessarily the sci-fi series watcher) that, having invested a couple of hours in a film, one will finish the thing enlightened and satisfied and having had a well-rounded experience. Suffice it to say that the ending ensures that this is no way the case with "The Maze Runner", and unfairly so in my view, even allowing for "part 2", which we "only" had to wait a year for...