Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials - directed by Wes Ball
Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ki Hong Lee, Aidan Gillen, Patricia Clarkson, Rosa Salazar, Katherine McNamara, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper, Lili Taylor, Alan Tudyk
Running Time: 132 minutes
Rated: M - violence and very mild profanity
What an unexpected surprise the first movie in this series was.
I was not at all enthusiastic about it in the lead up.
The trailers looked pretty bad to me.
Kaya Scodelario's heartfelt 'Thomas!!' as she emerged from the elevator into the glade at the centre of the mysterious maze looked melodramatic and silly.
In the context of the movie proper it was however perfectly fine.
I enjoyed "The Maze Runner" a lot - her performance, the movie on the whole and specially the great ending that left me way more excited for the sequel than I was prepared for.
Now as is the way these days we have more movies to round out the trilogy starting with The Scorch Trials.
These are based on three books so a trilogy is a given but the fact that the first movie made $340,000,000 on a modest $34,000,000 budget would probably have guaranteed more movies even if this wasn't the case.
The main crew (those that lived) are back for The Scorch Trials but the cast is amped up with some excellent additional talent including the brilliant Patricia Clarkson ("The Station Agent")
In fact it is almost as if the casting agent showed up on the set of Game of Thrones and started pointing to people.
Aidan Gillen, Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Brodie-Sangster are all GoT veterans.
Joining them is Barry Pepper ("Saving Private Ryan"), Giancarlo Esposito ("Fresh", "Breaking Bad"), Alan Tudyk ("Firefly", "Dodgeball") and Lili Taylor ("Ransom", "The Conjuring")
Some great actors there and just as well because you would have to think that the pressure is on for this franchise.
The road to box office gold is littered with the corpses of failed Hunger Games wannabes with only really "Insurgent" proving a success.
The second movie is the real test to see if it has what it takes to forge a successful trilogy or if it was a one movie deal set to run out of steam.
Beginning with the good old dream sequence into the snap awake to harsh reality this one leaves the gate at a pretty impressive pace.
Part of the appeal of the first movie for me given that I haven't read the books was the mystery.
What is going on and where is this going?
The early stages of this movie provide a few more clues but as the story kicks in properly and the central group find themselves alone against the harshness of the desert like environment we learn more.
The first movie was pretty bleak and dark but this one cranks it up (or down?) a notch.
Much in the movie reminded me of Naughty Dog's brilliant game "The Last of Us". Not just some of the themes but some visual and sound aspects.
In fact so similar is the sound of the inhabitants of sections of this movie to the runners, stalkers and clickers from that game that they might want to have a chat with their lawyers.
To be fair the book pre-dates the game by 3 years and maybe the sounds were described in the text.
Regardless the movie generates considerable tension and excitement from a sequence in the first hour featuring some truly horrific foes.
It is the first of many such scenes.
There are four or five genuinely thrilling action scenes in this film.
One set in a crumbling skyscraper is particularly good.
So regularly placed are these terrifically entertaining beats that you could almost miss some plot issues.
Something that bothered me consistently was the Imperial Stormtrooper like ability of the W.C.K.D soldiers to miss main cast members from close range but take down extras like pros.
They are highly trained and well equipped and after the brilliantly tense thrills of the scenes with non-human foes those with the soldiers suffer in comparison because of this.
Also there is a tendency to have an action scene, shift location, meet a new character then repeat.
It helps that those we meet are uniformly excellent thanks to the inspired casting but still - it is a little samey.
And if you can't pick Aidan Gillen as a villain mere seconds after he first appears I would recommend fewer alcoholic beverages before watching movies!
It isn't just the actors history playing conniving scumbags but his entire demeanor and attire for this character.
I expected him to wring his hands or twirl a mustache at any second so obvious is his true nature.
Other characters are all pretty much of the 'can we trust this person' variety but I guess that goes with the setting.
Whatever niggles I had with this movie don't really amount to much ultimately and certainly don't detract from a pretty decent couple of hours.
In fact I liked this movie even more than the first one.
Every time I felt myself grow slightly restless something happened that snapped me right back out of it.
I wasn't ever bored and wasn't more than slightly restless for a couple of short moments.
It's a two and a quarter hour movie but even so it flew by.
This one is dark, tense, exciting, action packed and loaded with intrigue and some imaginatively effective special effects.
More importantly it - like "The Maze Runner"- leaves me really, really wanting to see the next movie.
It's another finish that reveals some shocks and positions itself for the next part very, very nicely.
This series may not quite be up to the standard of or generate the enthusiasm that The Hunger Games movies do but it is pretty close for me.
It is already on course to mimic the pattern that that series did with each new movie proving better than the one before it and I hope that it continues when we get the final part in 2017
RATING: 77/ 100
CONCLUSION: This sequel more than measures up to its predecessor. An exciting, tense thriller that brings to mind "World War Z" with a dash of "The Hunger Games". It, like the first film has me excited to see what happens next.
Running Time: 132 minutes
Rated: M - violence and very mild profanity
What an unexpected surprise the first movie in this series was.
I was not at all enthusiastic about it in the lead up.
The trailers looked pretty bad to me.
Kaya Scodelario's heartfelt 'Thomas!!' as she emerged from the elevator into the glade at the centre of the mysterious maze looked melodramatic and silly.
In the context of the movie proper it was however perfectly fine.
I enjoyed "The Maze Runner" a lot - her performance, the movie on the whole and specially the great ending that left me way more excited for the sequel than I was prepared for.
Now as is the way these days we have more movies to round out the trilogy starting with The Scorch Trials.
These are based on three books so a trilogy is a given but the fact that the first movie made $340,000,000 on a modest $34,000,000 budget would probably have guaranteed more movies even if this wasn't the case.
The main crew (those that lived) are back for The Scorch Trials but the cast is amped up with some excellent additional talent including the brilliant Patricia Clarkson ("The Station Agent")
In fact it is almost as if the casting agent showed up on the set of Game of Thrones and started pointing to people.
Aidan Gillen, Nathalie Emmanuel and Thomas Brodie-Sangster are all GoT veterans.
Joining them is Barry Pepper ("Saving Private Ryan"), Giancarlo Esposito ("Fresh", "Breaking Bad"), Alan Tudyk ("Firefly", "Dodgeball") and Lili Taylor ("Ransom", "The Conjuring")
Some great actors there and just as well because you would have to think that the pressure is on for this franchise.
The road to box office gold is littered with the corpses of failed Hunger Games wannabes with only really "Insurgent" proving a success.
The second movie is the real test to see if it has what it takes to forge a successful trilogy or if it was a one movie deal set to run out of steam.
 |
| Kaya Scodelario, Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster and Ki Hong Lee return |
Part of the appeal of the first movie for me given that I haven't read the books was the mystery.
What is going on and where is this going?
The early stages of this movie provide a few more clues but as the story kicks in properly and the central group find themselves alone against the harshness of the desert like environment we learn more.
The first movie was pretty bleak and dark but this one cranks it up (or down?) a notch.
Much in the movie reminded me of Naughty Dog's brilliant game "The Last of Us". Not just some of the themes but some visual and sound aspects.
In fact so similar is the sound of the inhabitants of sections of this movie to the runners, stalkers and clickers from that game that they might want to have a chat with their lawyers.
To be fair the book pre-dates the game by 3 years and maybe the sounds were described in the text.
Regardless the movie generates considerable tension and excitement from a sequence in the first hour featuring some truly horrific foes.
It is the first of many such scenes.
There are four or five genuinely thrilling action scenes in this film.
One set in a crumbling skyscraper is particularly good.
 |
| The impressive new cast members include Giancarlo Esposito, Aiden Gillan and Rosa Salazar (far right) |
Something that bothered me consistently was the Imperial Stormtrooper like ability of the W.C.K.D soldiers to miss main cast members from close range but take down extras like pros.
They are highly trained and well equipped and after the brilliantly tense thrills of the scenes with non-human foes those with the soldiers suffer in comparison because of this.
Also there is a tendency to have an action scene, shift location, meet a new character then repeat.
It helps that those we meet are uniformly excellent thanks to the inspired casting but still - it is a little samey.
And if you can't pick Aidan Gillen as a villain mere seconds after he first appears I would recommend fewer alcoholic beverages before watching movies!
It isn't just the actors history playing conniving scumbags but his entire demeanor and attire for this character.
I expected him to wring his hands or twirl a mustache at any second so obvious is his true nature.
Other characters are all pretty much of the 'can we trust this person' variety but I guess that goes with the setting.
 |
| Effects and production design are very, very good |
In fact I liked this movie even more than the first one.
Every time I felt myself grow slightly restless something happened that snapped me right back out of it.
I wasn't ever bored and wasn't more than slightly restless for a couple of short moments.
It's a two and a quarter hour movie but even so it flew by.
This one is dark, tense, exciting, action packed and loaded with intrigue and some imaginatively effective special effects.
More importantly it - like "The Maze Runner"- leaves me really, really wanting to see the next movie.
It's another finish that reveals some shocks and positions itself for the next part very, very nicely.
This series may not quite be up to the standard of or generate the enthusiasm that The Hunger Games movies do but it is pretty close for me.
It is already on course to mimic the pattern that that series did with each new movie proving better than the one before it and I hope that it continues when we get the final part in 2017
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