The Maze Runner has a-mazing race for escape theme. I just wish, they explain it, better.

Rating: 7/10 (27 September 2014)

Despite All Our Rage, We're Still Just Rats in a Cage. The movie does have a lot of twist and turns like a maze. So, it could be a bit confusing and frustrating to watch. You'll feel very lost and disoriented, watching it, trust me! While, I do praise the cast's performances, as well as the film's intriguing premise and refreshingly dark and action tone of Claustrophobia fears with great use of special/ visual effects, but still there was something missing from this film that could made it better. Directed by Wes Ball, the movie is based on author James Dashner's 2009 book of the same name. The film is the first installment in The Maze Runner film series, so sadly, most of the exposition needed for this film is in the sequels books, The Scorch Trials (2010), The Death Cure (2011), The Kill Order (2012) & The Fever Code (2016). The concept is interesting. It's remind me of 1990s Lord of the Flies mixed with the movie, 1997's Cube. It's sound very intelligent, but it was really dumb at parts. The story follows sixteen-year-old Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) who awakens in a rusty elevator with no memory of who he is, only to learn he's been delivered to the middle of an intricate maze, along with other boys, who have been trying to find their way out of the ever-changing labyrinth full of monster scorpions call 'Grievers'. For a PG-13 movie, it's pretty violent. Lots of scary imagery. Felt almost 1979's Alien like. Honestly, the whole concept really doesn't really make any logical sense even if you get to read more of the exposition in the sequels. For a Sci-Fiction young-adult post-apocalyptic science fiction, it borderlines Sci-fiction, and seem more like Sci-fantasy. The science in this film, makes little to no logical sense. When you think, hard on it, it doesn't make any sense on why the creators would build a giant Barnes maze. The world is half destroy by a social flare from the sun and a deadly virus is wiping out the population, yet they have enough man-power and energy to build a giant maze with an eco-system to test human beings mind under pressure. What!? How is that even possible? You have computers to run test like that, while waste limited resources like that. The movie is full of huge plot holes and really bad un-explained sequences like this. Don't bother asking why they have bones forest in the glade, as the movie never talks about it. Don't ask why the 'Gladers', can be immune to the flare disease, if they still suffer the effects without a serum? A big one is why isn't the over-bright sun burning the glade? Or how teenagers with little knowledge of science could be scientists? There are just way too many plot holes! Also, the plot could easily be resolved if they honestly just build a ladder. This movie loaded us up with more unnecessary terminology that it gets really annoying. The whole villain corporation name 'W.I.C.K.E.D' is way too gimmicky. I guess, 'E.V.I.L' was already taken .The harsh downer ending was so out there in left field that it felt like a different movie. It really left the audience with an awful taste in their mouth. The movie and book series differ in a few ways, as the movie cuts away the whole thing about characters being able to communicate via telepathy. They also ruin some of the characters like Gally (Will Poulter); by changing the whole ending, which means he couldn't be in the third movie at all. Another thing that the movie change is the Maze. The Maze would had made more sense, if it was indeed underground, rather than in the middle of a WICKED complex and outside. The Glade was supposed to be a pseudo-idyllic place where it never rains, sleets, or snows, but the film, it wasn't. The whole griever hole is not a void/cliff, but a door. Gees all these changes to the Maze ruins the whole theme of the Box being the womb, the Glade as childhood innocent, Maze as harsh adolescence, and the real world as adulthood from book. The whole allegory of the maze is life. There are sections where you see an opening and follow it, but you inevitably hit a dead-end or an obstacle, and have to retrace your steps or move around it to continue on. The movie has a lot of adult themes like dealing with manipulation in a society full of rules and order. Do you break them, or follow the rules? Do you want to live under safe confinement or anarchy freedoms? It's a big thought that the movie lacks in story-telling. Overall: It's a refreshingly dark approach to the new genre of Young Adult dystopian setting, but it's really doesn't shine well in being a great movie.