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TRANSCRIPT
INTHE MAZE RUNNERLook out, look out…
The Maze Runner is not a good movie, but it wins points for omitting much of what makes typical teen films excruciating.There’s no love triangle and no lengthy flashbacks of elders barfing up loads of mythology and exposition. It may be sad to consider this an accomplishment, but The Maze Runner’s spry pace is noticeable and appreciated.
Mercifully restrained in the CGI department, Wes Ball's feature debut reps a solid adaptation of James Dashner's
YA fantasy novel.
The Bottom LineManaging fan expectations could turn out to be this movie’s principal challenge. OpensSept. 19 (20th Century Fox)CastDylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, Aml AmeenDirectorWes Ball
Overall: 3.5 StarsRating: 12A
Run time: 113 minutes
The score is horrendous, and the sound design hasn’t an ounce of subtlety. The overall production design – including the opening titles – looks a lot more like TV than a feature film. Were it not for the expansion into the larger world in the last few minutes, I’d compare the movie to a season one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Commander Riker loses his memory but retains his leadership skills (and dashing good looks) on some crazy prison planet.
The similarities to well-known literary works (Nineteen Eighty-Four and Lord of the Flies among them) and speculative fiction thrillers (Logan’s Run, Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, for instance) are almost more reassuring than disconcerting. In fact, it’s this recurrent sense of familiarity rather than any distinct originality that makes the film consistently engaging, although never outright challenging…
The Maze Runner has a sly way of seeming propulsive, even if not much happens. We enter the world of the film alongside a befuddled boy stricken with amnesia, placed in a world filled with other amnesiacs. As such, no one really knows what the hell they’re doing, which is a surprisingly effective storytelling trick. Our hero is Thomas, played by the 23-year-old Dylan O’Brien. He’s the newest “greenie” in “the Glade,” and arrives with boxes of farming supplies.
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