Lose yourself

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2014)

While I do wish this had more to do with the maze than it ultimately ended up being about, and while I wish it had more Patricia Clarkson, those are extremely little nits to pick in an otherwise smooth adaptation of the James Dashner novel.
One of the reasons this is such a compelling watch, is a combination of pitch-perfect casting and superior-though-short-of-being-award-worthy performances. The young cast, of whom the only known face (other than Clarkson) to me was Thomas Brodie-Sangster ('Jojen' from 'Game of Thrones'), and another kid (Will Poulter) that plays a (kinda) antagonist within the setting so to speak, who most of us would remember from 'Son of Rambow', 'Narnia 3' and 'We're the Millers' (his physical comedy in that one did evoke peals of laughter in the audience, in spite of most of it being of the juvenile variety, and that's not easy to pull off, regardless of it appearing commonplace). The lead should be known to the TV- watching American audience, since he's more famous for 'Teen Wolf', and suits the role to a T.
Much has also been written about the production design that gives the surroundings a suitable, lived-in feel, and that works in building and maintaining the atmosphere of the setting. However, I, for one, felt that this world was not as explored as it could've been, with quite a few holes in the narrative being unexplored/unexplained. However, that would be a quirk of the written word vs the screenplay, since the novel did have its plot set in stone, and Wes Ball and the crew quite possibly decided to stick to it rather than experiment like the way 'Game of Thrones' has been doing, albeit with the support of its prolific (ha, ha) author. Suffice to say that while I did notice that the narrative did not take as many chances with the material as it could have, I was saved from having that feeling while watching the cinematic events unfold, since the editing et al keeps things moving at a fairly decent pace that these become nits to pick only while writing the review, not otherwise. And that IS a compliment, albeit a little backhanded one.
They also gave away more of the back-story than I expected they would, and the taste it leaves is one of intrigue and just enough curiosity for us to check out the subsequent movies in this trilogy.
Wish I'd had the opportunity to watch this in the format it's been converted to - Barco Escape, but that's an experiment being carried out only in the US for now, and that too across 5 cinemas only, overall. Hopefully, sometime soon. All in all, a good watch at the cinema this weekend.