The Maze Runner

Plot synopsis:
Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) wakes up in an ascending elevator. With him are supply containers marked WCKD. When the elevator reaches the top, a door above him opens and he's surrounded by a Lord of the Flies type gaggle of young men/boys. Thomas takes off running, but stops when he realizes he's in a small glade surrounded by huge walls.Gally (Will Poulter) subdues Thomas and keeps him from trying to run into a maze which is accessible through a door in the wall.The leader of the group, Alby (Ami Ameen), and his consigliere Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) explain the situation to Thomas. Once a month the elevator (or the box as they call it), comes to the surface with supplies as well as a new boy. They all live in the glade and call themselves Gladers. None of them can remember anything about their pasts or why they were sent there, but after a few days their names come back to them. Each boy is given a different job. Some are builders, some are runners. A door opens in the giant wall every day and closes every night. The door leads to a maze that surrounds the glade. Runners go through looking for a way out. "If you're trapped in the maze over night, the Grievers get you and you die". The maze changes every night. Alby was the first boy to arrive in the Glade. No one knows why they're there.Thomas starts to form a friendship with the kid who came up the month before him. He's one of the youngest of the group. His name is Chuck (Blake Cooper).That night there's a celebration for Thomas. Gally is wrestling one of the other boys and asks if Thomas wants to have a go. They end up sparring and when Thomas hits his head on the ground, he remembers his name.That night Thomas has a dream. It's full of fleeting images, but a woman (Patricia Clarkson) says, "Wicked is good."Alby takes Thomas around to show him more of the sites. The boys carve their names on the wall when they arrive. When one dies, they cross off the name. Thomas tries to fit in and he's given the task to go dig up fertilizer from out in the woods. While he's there, he's attacked by Ben (Chris Sheffield) one of the Runners who was stung by a Griever. While they fight, the other boy says, "This is all your fault. I saw you. That boy has what they call The Changing. A sting will apparently cause tremendous pain and make you prone to violence. There's no cure for it, so they force the boy into the maze at night just as the doors are closing." Everyone is concerned that there was a Griever attack during the day.That night Thomas has another dream. It's more of the lady assuring him that Wicked is good, but now he also remembers himself and a girl about the same age sitting across from each other at work stations going over diagnostics.The next day, Alby goes into the maze to retrace Ben's path and find out what happens. It rains during the day. Now it's getting late and Alby still hasn't returned. All the boys gather around the entrance to the maze. Just as the doors are about to close, the lead Runner named Minho (Ki Hong Lee) appears with a very injured Alby. Thomas rushes into the maze to help them, but the door closes behind him.Minho and Thomas use vines to suspend Alby's body and try to keep it safe from the Grievers. Alby was stung while inside the maze. One of the Grievers appears and chases after Thomas. The Grievers looks like gigantic bedbugs with robot legs and scorpion tails. Thomas and the Griever run around a bit as the walls in the maze change. Finally Thomas is able to lure the Griever between two walls that are colliding and SQUISH! Dead Griever.The next day Gally calls for a meeting of the Gladers. Most are excited that Thomas killed a Griever. There's another group though, lead by Gally who feel that the rules they have were put in place to keep everyone safe and ever since Thomas arrived things have changed like Grievers attacking during the day. Speaking of things changing, the elevator arrives.The boys run out to check what the elevator brought. Inside are no supplies, only a young girl (Kaya Scodelario). She looks up and says, "Thomas...", before passing out. In her hand is a note that reads: 'She's the last one ever.'Gally calls for Thomas to be punished because non Runners are allowed in the maze. He doesn't like the fact that the girl knew who Thomas was. He's scared that the elevator hasn't gone back down since they took out the girl. Newt says Thomas can be locked up overnight without any food and starting tomorrow, he's a Runner. Gally is mad at his leniency.Some of the boys go back into the maze to look at the carcass of the Griever, which further upsets Gally. Inside it they find a weird device that has an electronic display reading the number 7. The device also is marked WCKD. The boys realize whoever sends them supplies also made the Grievers.Minho shows Thomas a map of the maze. There are different outer sections that open each day as the maze changes. Each outer section is numbered. Last night, section 7 was open.The girl is awake. She's at the top of a tower throwing stuff at the boys on the ground. Thomas yells up to her that it's him. She agrees to let him come up. He explains that her memory was wiped, but in a few days she'll remember her name. She says she already remembers her name. It's Teresa. She remembers Thomas too. He tells her that he's had dreams about her and a lady saying that "Wicked is good." When Teresa woke up she found two syringes in her pocket too.That night, Thomas deals with his punishment of being locked up. Chuck visits him and brings him some food. He also asks Thomas to give his parents a little carved statue Chuck made. Even though he doesn't remember his parents, he's sure his parents remember him and miss him. Thomas gives back the statue and tells Chuck that he'll be able to give that to his parents himself.The next morning Thomas and Minho go into the maze along with the device they got from the Griever. The device ends up making clicking noises and guides them to a new section Minho has never seen before. Minho is also concerned that all of the outer sections of the maze seem to be open. They get to a wide area marked WCKD Loading Dock that ends up in a dead end, but the device turns from red to green and opens a new path. That path leads to what looks like some sort of sewer tunnel. The edges of the tunnel have the same slime that the Grievers secrete, so they go back to the Glade.Thomas decides to use one of the syringes on the still changing Alby. It ends up making him better. When he comes to he tells Thomas, "You were their favorite." But we don't find out what he means because outside doors all over the maze begin to open and out pour scores of Grievers.The Griever attack that wipes out lots of the boys and destroys most of their village. Alby is among the dead. Chuck is saved after being grabbed by one of the Grievers. They end up hacking off its tail. After the attack, Thomas realizes that the venom from the Griever stings helps the victim remember, so he takes the hacked off tail and stings himself and he remembers a little bit more.Thomas remembers that the maze isn't a prison, it's a test. He sees all of the other boys in incubation tubes. A lot of them are in a panic. He also sees himself as a scientist along with Teresa.The Gladers use the second syringe and Thomas is cured and confesses to everyone that he's one of the people responsible for everyone being there. Gally is furious; he and his group tie Thomas and Teresa to stakes outside the entrance to the maze as an offering. But half the group is still with Thomas so they free them. Now the Gladers are divided.Thomas tells Gally that he'd rather die trying to escape than die in the Glade not trying. Thomas takes a group into the maze. They get to the Loading Dock area from before and are attacked by Grievers again. They go through the sewer tunnel and it leads to a locked door. They need a numerical code to get through. They realize the code must be the sequence in which the maze would normally open. Theresa types it in and everyone goes through a door. Walls crush all the Grievers behind them.The kids walk through some hallways until they find a door marked exit. (It's seriously a regular old exit door like you'd find in any office building). They go through and now they're inside the lab from Thomas dreams and memories. All the scientists are dead. A video starts to play.The woman from earlier identifies herself as Ava Paige and tells the kids that they don't remember this but there was global devastation by something called the Flare. She was part of a controversial group called The World Catastrophe Killzone Department (WCKD), that believed that in testing the kids they could monitor their brains and find a cure. While she speaks, behind her guerrilla soldiers rush in and start killing other scientists. She tells them she's glad they passed the first test and reminds them that Wicked is good. Before signing off, Paige shoots herself in the head.A door opens leading outside. Before anyone can leave, Gally shows up. He has a gun. He says that they all belong in the Glade. He goes to shoot Thomas, but Chuck jumps in front of the bullet. Gally gets stabbed in the chest with a knife. Chuck hands the, now bloody, statue to Thomas and dies.A group, who looks like the guerrilla soldiers from the video, rush in and takes the kids outside to waiting helicopters. At first it looks like they're in the desert, but we pull out to reveal that they're outside what used to be a city. Buildings are destroyed and everything is covered in sand. They fly over the maze and the Glade and no one asks why the helicopters just didn't land inside the Glade and rescue the kids there instead.In the final shot, it is shown that Paige is alive and wiping fake blood off her head. She says that the kids have taken the bait. More kids survived than she anticipated. The Maze was a success, and now "phase 2" can begin as the helicopter flies away to the city of ruins.To be continued...

Tags: mystery, murder, violence, horror, flashback, action, suspenseful

Review:
It was jammed with stock lines: bland, insinuating lines that were supposed to put me on the edge of my seat but instead left me thinking, 'Okay, when are we going to get to the POINT of this movie?' We got to see the intimidating-jerk-who-doesn't-listen-to-reason character, the hardened-guy-who-will-later-be-reduced-to-a-weak-state-to-show-us how-shaken-up-the-best-of-us-can-get character, the arbitrary female (although, thankfully, fewer movies today are marginalizing women), the amnesiac/s, and the innocent-character-we-can-get-away-with-killing.
The pacing of the film, if not the events, were completely predictable and the ending (which I came to the theater curious for in the first place) came off as stale and forced, like the rest of the ponderous placeholder scenes that served as a plot.
Indeed, The Maze Runner is such a cool, confident and thrilling blend of action beats and character work that it's hard to believe Ball has never before commandeered a full- length feature film.
But this is more a problem with the source material than Ball's own skills as a director.Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) finds himself thrust rudely into the world of the Glade: a community of boys who have figured out how to live while encircled by a giant, constantly changing maze, within which dwell giant, boy-eating monsters known only as Grievers.
Thomas winds up unsettling the entire camp with his refusal to follow the rules and determination to ask questions: he wants to explore the Maze with designated runners like Minho (Ki Hong Lee), and figure out a way to get free.
Ball cuts scenes of great, heart-stopping tension together masterfully: whether it's Thomas running through walls that are fast closing in on him, or Thomas and Minho trying to outrun a Griever while burdened with an unconscious Alby.The film even finds some welcome dramatic depth in this strange little community of lost boys in the Glade - Thomas' growing antagonism with Gally is balanced against the mutual respect he and Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) develop for each other, and the brotherly connection that he forges with the adorable Chuck (Blake Cooper).
It's a strangely deflating experience to have the film's rich ethical dilemmas and intense action sequences give way to an underlying dystopian narrative that isn't really all that compelling.Nevertheless, The Maze Runner remains quite an accomplishment.
For me, this was the type of film that I knew if I just went with the flow and didn't try and look for all the holes in the story and script that I'd be better off.The way the film was presented by first time director Wes Ball was top notch, as I felt I was right there in the maze with the main characters.
The action, when it happens, is fun, but it doesn't happen often enough.The film follows a boy named Thomas who is cast into a mini society put together by a group of boys that live in the center of a maze, in a place they call the Glade.
Much like an episode of Lost meeting The Lord of the Flies meeting  Labyrinth, we understand narrative at the same time as Thomas, who is  eventually told that three years ago a young teenage boy first arrived  at the glade, and each month since one more arrives in the lift with  certain supplies to survive.
Co-staring alongside Dylan O'Brien are equally exceptional performances  by; Will Poulter, in a dark tough-guy role, (and absolutely nothing  like his recent role as Kenny in We're The Millar's); Thomas  Brodie-Sangster stars as a fellow Glader; and Kaya Scodelario in a  surprise turn-up as the first female at the Glade - but also 'the last  one ever' to arrive.
For an age in which the medium is flooded with young adult novels and movies, the film feels fresh and isn't overwhelmed by clichés like so many others are.It's led by a relatively unknown cast.
While the story is nothing we haven't seen before, the Maze Runner has some suspense and unknown elements that keeps you latched into the film.
Lead Maze Runner Minho (Ki Hong Lee) was also a nice supporting character, bringing the wing man role to life and adding a little grounding to Thomas's flamboyant attitude.
However, in my opinion, "The Maze Runner" is unable to get it to be thrilling.The film comes to an end without knowing the answer to several questions in order to make room for the second film.So I will be waiting for a new episode and news surprises from Wes Ball and T.S. Nowlin in "Scorch Trials" :).
The Maze Runner is a very bad movie, poor acting, trying to capture poignant moments fail, logic is for director unknown concept.
Although the main structure of "The Maze Runner" will probably look familiar if you have seen more then 100 movies in your life, it's still expertly paced and done so you will be glued to your screen for the whole ride.Overall, "The Maze Runner" is not to be missed one if you like sci-fi movies, which are good crafted and tells interesting stories.
The movie banked in with such a lead that most of us would die to see what Dylan aka Styles do in this novel depiction..Believe me the confused confident curious attitude of our teen wolf Star , worked here too...Glade was a Habitable place, created in the middle of a evershifting Maze inhabited by mysterious(never seen) creatures.
group of teens struggling to survive inside the glades, met a disoriented Thomas who , ever since his visit, starts u...nveilling the secrets of the maze with the help of Runners...To add up the complication a girl named teresa was sent as the last one...From there how they embark upon the journey to freed themselves is what Maze Runner All about....Teen oriented movie with a teen starcast, gave a performance so good and observable that The movie will survive the Box Office...Good Points: 1)A fresh starcast , with some brilliant performances 2)A story which was well captivating and grippy, at no point it was loose, from the first scene it will hold you back and will keep you surprising till the end...and is refreshingly dark....Much better than the book....It seemed more detailed...
3)The set was the best part, what a creation 4)Cinematography well carried out 5)Sound effects were perfect and gave the movie that extra punch...Bad Points: 1) The end was abrupt It's a watchable trade......After a long time , a performance based movie from Hollywood....
I recently watched this movie called "The Maze Runner", a scientific thriller film directed by Wes Ball.
The movie is filled with great suspense and kept me entertained at all times.The story opens with Thomas who wakes up in an elevator which was filled with water for a couple of hours.
While not gory by any standards, the dark tone of the film added atmosphere and made for quality viewing.For those who haven't read the books, the ending may have seemed abrupt, but you leave the cinema feeling like you've got your money's worth...
It had everything I had ever hoped to see in a movie: a great opening, a highly engaging, thrilling, mysterious, easy-to-follow, simple yet effective and to-the-point plot, likable characters you could actually care about and root for, incredible performances delivered by each and every single actor and actress, a superb conclusion and cliff-hanger ending, which calls for a sequel, awesome special effects, the kind where special effects are kept to a minimum and are not employed for the sake of special effects but for the sake of the plot, a pleasant and balanced mix of all the popular genres: Mystery, Sci-Fi and Action.
It's a pretty bad movie, you will watch it feeling that the screenwriters just did copy paste from every somewhat successful movie that has been done lately, he even thrown in at the last second a Kristen Stewart look a like complete with the half dumb look in her eyes, since the movie is pretty much all made from well kept only boy teens do seems a bit over the top very gay, in any case most of the acting was OK even though you are wondering did the deserted characters had a beauty salon close by that fixed their hair every two hours?
The Maze Runner is a captivating movie centred around Thomas, a young man who awakes in a village populated entirelyby males and has forgotten who he is.
The Maze Runner is a 2014 action/sci-fi film in which a teenager named Thomas wakes up to find himself without any memory of who he is, and in a small colony surrounded by a dangerous maze known as "The Glades".
It's a well acted and thrilling film with more upsides than down.Maze Runner itself if very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, and just like the book, the characters are the main selling points.
Besides, I have to say I found The Maze Runner superior to Divergent, Beautiful Creatures and The Hunger Games; I know that that isn't something very enthusiastic to say, but we can't demand too much from this kind of films..
The movie also has some bad points, there wasn't any love story between Thomas and Teresa, a lot of people died for the same reasons, and they all died because of the flares and grievers.
I read the book and I did not know how the movie was going to do at the box office or with the fans of the book and critics.The first film in the series is based on a series of books by James Dashner and it is an entertaining film, but it's not flawless.The story follows Thomas, a boy who wakes up in a moving elevator going up called The Box. Once he arrives, he discovers a grassy area called The Glade and the people that live there called Gladers.
When a young girl, Teresa arrives in the box, Thomas's memory starts to come back and he realizes what is really going on and sets out to try and find a way out.I wasn't totally against the movie, I was very interested to see how this movie would turn out, so my sister went out one night and bought a couple of movies from RedBox and she bought this movie.
This sequence becomes the drive to finish the story and that's all we get because we don't know a lot about and they attempt to play an important role in the film and this creates a major plot hole.The one major problem that these young adult movies keep having is that in every teenage movie, there has to be an antagonist and this goes to Will Poulter as Gally and he plays the role like an idiot and he does not make me feel sympathy for him at all.Why you put a stupid-ass character in the movie?
The acting is good and bad, the supporting cast is out there and makes a lot of effort to put on good performances, but the only two that really shines out is Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario and they have great chemistry.Overall, I enjoy THE MAZE RUNNER.
Sure, it has it's major flaws, a stupid character and a very confusing ending setting up a sequel, titled "THE SCORCH TRIALS", for a September release this year and I can't wait, it is still watchable.I give THE MAZE RUNNER a 8.5/10..
Coming off the heels of hits like The Hunger Games and Divergent, The Maze Runner is the first story in the trilogy of novels by James Dashner.
Standing against great movies like what I have mentioned earlier The Maze Runner is still has a long way to go being this is the first of a sequel of movies we are about to see in the coming years.
And at times we are left to make tough choices.Equipped with strong acting and brilliant CG The Maze Runner is a movie that will keep the viewer engaged every second.
Who is keeping them in that place?"Maze Runner" is a surprisingly good film, with mystery, action and sci-fi with wonderful special effects.
Unlike movies based off book series (like The Giver) that hastily solve the main conflict at the end and explain everything because they know that their movie sucks but that they'll make money on hype anyways, the Maze Runner is confident that it'll be a series that will continue, and thus keeps the viewer in suspense at the end, having only revealed a bit more about the mystery surrounding the maze, but still ending with a cliffhanger that leaves you confused but eager to see more.
Anyway, with the title and concept like 'The Maze Runner', the movie 'Logan's Run' quickly comes to mind.
My immediate thought while watching The Maze Runner was just how close the whole premise was to Vincent Natali's sci-fi horror Cube (1997), both films featuring a group of people who wake to find themselves in a strange environment with no memory of how they got there.
The big difference is that, where Cube was a brilliantly executed low-budget thriller with nail-biting tension and a thought provoking ambiguous climax, The Maze Runner is a mega-budget blockbuster that, for much of its running time, moves like molasses, and which ends leaving questions that we know will be answered, just so long as we shell out more cash to see the next couple of instalments.Obviously, at 47 I'm not exactly in the intended demographic for this film, but I do feel that this one missed the opportunity to be a hugely entertaining adventure for all ages.
Blake Cooper who plays Chuck, really did an awesome job, with credible performances being logged by Dylan O'Brien, Aml Ammen, and Hi Hong Lee. This film is definitely designed for a sequel, but that's really not a big surprise, is it?Anyway, the wife and I really enjoyed it and we are looking forward to The Maze Runner 2!
There are things that don't line up and not having read the books yet I'm not exactly sure what is plot holes and what is intentional but nevertheless I still really enjoyed it.This movie kept me glued to my seat the whole time.
Which Isn't all that bad, lots of movies have them, wouldn't want to watch a 5 hour movie right?Like I said in the beginning, read the book first.
Dylan O'Brien (Thomas) though was new to me, I've heard that his from Teen Wolf which I don't watch, but I was actually surprise with his acting performance in this film, it actually pretty good.
It leaves you in suspense at the end wanting more but as this is a series one has to wait with bated breath for the next grand adventure, like in our favorite TV sitcoms from the 70,s and Eighties when we would see To be Continued on the screen and sigh as our parent,s shooed us off to bed this is that kind of movie one where we all gasp and sigh.the boy who played Newt I have seen in Nanny Mcphee and and a film about a 8 year old boy with a brain tumor that was a true story.
The Maze Runner is an exceptionally entertaining little movie that belies its origins as a young-adult story.
The acting is better than might be expected for a young-adult film, and O'Brien, Brodie-Sangster, and Poulter are each well cast.It's obvious that The Maze Runner is intended to be a franchise - if it enjoys box-office success, of course.
For me, "The Maze Runner" just felt like another young adult dystopian film too many..
The Maze runner is a science fiction action thriller film directed by Wes Ball, based on James Dashner's book with the same name.
The Maze Runner tries to be as good as science-fiction stories, like The Cube, The Hypercube and Lost, but instead we have a "Hunger- Games-ish" ending.
Although The Maze Runner didn't disappoint me, I thought the movie could be a lot better, because there are certain things that diminish the importance of the actions in the plot: the tiny an uncomfortable laughs; and it looks like a Disney movie, but it has really aggressive moments.In the end, the film is OK, just one of the bunch.
Making a movie like that one or two times a year, and the originality quickly fades out.To go into the detail of "The Maze runner" it was quickly to me, it had some things that could make it a better movie.
But then it has to make good on its initial promise and instead delivers a head-scratching ending that's just a set up for a string of $equels.Still, 'The Maze Runner' is well made and features a strong cast of young actors who are light years ahead of the typical mannequins who make up these sorts of movies.
Some folks have suggested that one ought to read the book to really get what's going on - I'm not going to do that, the screenwriter's job is to explain them or leave it out, and this movie wasn't good enough to sell me on the books.I think the most disappointing aspect of The Maze Runner is that I have the distinct impression it could have been a lot better if they had spent more time on adapting the story..
I was reading through several pages of reviews on this movie and noticed all the positive comments regarding "good acting" in this film but imo, The Maze Runner had the worst acting I have ever seen.
First things first, if you read the book The Maze Runner and liked it go see this movie, end of review for you, but if you haven't read the book keep reading.
None of them remember their past, only their name, and when Thomas shows up he is determined to find a way out of the maze.I was really excited for this movie, the trailer was great, the cast was pretty good, and although I hadn't read the book I heard it was fantastic.