also what's up with the current epidemic of soulless edm slash dance pop regurgitations of beloved classics? did some producers just wake up one day and say yeah let's make gangsta's paradise except bad and about nothing? did the logical song really need to be remade with some nightcore'd white girl and a bass drop? are there actually people out there who would rather hear ava max mumble her way through whenever wherever than listen to shakira's iconic original? did we run out of music

Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) Review

The last big YA franchise still going, and its only cause Dylan O’Brian thought he was Tom Cruise and risked a stunt when he didn’t have to so he ended up in a hospital and so the film was pushed back whilst the YA film movement slowly died out and now ‘The Death Cure’ is finally here, but is there any interest left in the franchise? I thought not, and then I went to the cinema to see it, and the screening I was in was full. So well done world, you still surprise me!

Plot: In the epic finale to The Maze Runner Saga, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary last city, a WCKD controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who makes it out alive will get the answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze. Will Thomas and the crew make it out alive? Or will Ava Paige get her way?

The ‘Maze Runner’ films were never anything special in my eyes. I don’t even really find them particularly good as films, but they are enjoyable for what they are. These are the types of films you can watch on a Saturday night when you just want to relax and you don’t want to watch something that requires a lot of brain work. But one thing I admire about the ‘Maze Runner’ franchise and more-so about this new entry is that you got to give props to director Wes Ball for making his trilogy. He directed all the films in the series and he was able to tell this story from beginning to end, and that is admirable. And I also appreciate Wes Ball for having the gut to refuse that extra paycheck and not split the final book in the series into two films, unlike franchises like ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Twilight Saga’ and ‘Divergent’, the latter of which didn’t even succeed in its ambitions. And don’t even get me started on the short ‘The Hobbit’ book being turned into a massive trilogy the size of ‘Lord of the Rings’. So yes, I do admire Wes Ball for keeping the final book as one film, and not splitting it into multiple films, however at the same time with having only one movie for the final book, the movie is too long. ‘The Death Cure’ goes on for about 2 hours 30 minutes or something along those lines, and I get why, since Wes Ball wanted to cram as much into the film as he could, however by doing so the movie inevitably hits pacing issues, with many scenes dragged out to the extent of becoming boring, and many side-plot points which the film easily could have done without. That brings me to the next issue, being that there are way too many characters in the film which the plot doesn’t manage to balance well, and so many characters end up being under-used. The main victim in this is Patricia Clarkson’s villain Ava Paige, who throughout the series has been doing sweet FA and gets the same treatment in this film too, especially in the end where she kind of loses the ‘villain’ title in order for another character to get his moment to shine, which is fair play to that character, but not to Patricia Clarkson. To add to this, ‘The Death Cure’ finds the need to introduce more new characters with the likes of Walton Goggins’ mysterious business man Lawrence, who appears in the film, says a bunch of monologues and then just goes away. Goggins doesn’t do a bad job at portraying the character, but you are just left there wondering what the real purpose of his character was. And there are quite a few questionable plot choices throughout the movie, then again for the kind of movie this is trying to delve deep into the logical side of things isn’t really the right call. 

‘Maze Runner’ and ‘The Scorch Trials’ both were films that were enjoyable on their own, but it always felt like we were missing something, with that feeling that those two films were building up to something big. So ‘The Death Cure’ has the job of giving us the pay-off as the final chapter in the series, and to be honest it does a swell enough job with basically a non-stop action romp with our heroes going on endless missions and looking bad-ass whilst doing them. And the action is actually fairly decent, with the opening sequence involving a cargo train having a very ‘Mad Max’ feel to it, and then later in the more final moments of the film there are some cool close combat moments which were in all fairness to Wes Ball not badly directed at all. Moving on, the performances from cast members in this film were not bad at all, but generally everyone was fairly mediocre, and it didn’t help that many cast members the likes of the already mentioned Patricia Clarkson and Walton Goggins, and then also Giancarlo Esposito, Dexter Darden and many others being strongly under-used. But there are stand-outs, with Dylan O’Brian being one as our lead hero Thomas, and if there’s one thing that the ‘Maze Runner’ franchise succeeded in, it was that it made a rising star out of O’Brien, who is a talent to be watched. He just needs to be willing to step away from the comfort of his action films and be willing to tread into new territory like indie, drama, comedy or coming-of-age films, as I think that he has the talent for it. I mean, it was a nice change of pace when I saw him in the film ‘Deepwater Horizon’, and if he continues down that route he might end up being something bigger. Thomas Brodie-Sangster was also really good as Newt, and it was really nice to see that at the root of this film was the friendship between Thomas and Newt, and their relationship was the closest thing this movie got to emotional resonance. Rosa Salazar has a few strong scenes, which makes me really look forward to the upcoming ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ in which she will be able to show her full action star power by having to handle a lead role. And I was quite surprised by Aidan Gillen, who takes his weaselly factor from ‘Game of Thrones’ but also adds the sort of cool villainous stance to himself, and I was actually genuinely appreciative of his role in this film. Also a certain character makes a surprising return which was very welcome, that is all I’ll say on that matter.

Last few points to mention is that I feel like the film could have done a better job at tying into the previous two films, since because of the two year gap since the last film, a lot of people most likely forgot what has happened in the series thus far, as this is not a franchise which you can class as particularly memorable. For example, 30 minutes into the film and a zombie appears, and for a couple minutes I was confused as to why a zombie randomly appeared in this movie, and then I remembered that this series has the whole zombie virus plot-line which the film didn’t really remind us about until that helpful hungry zombie showed up. I’m just saying that because of the delay in production I think ‘The Death Cure’ should have had at least some kind of small reintroduction to the series for those of us who are not that dedicated to the fandom as some out there. Also, another point, I admired this film for not being scared of killing off its characters, which is a notable issue in many blockbuster films these days, especially those that are budgeted by a certain small company that goes by the name Disney. However with 20th Century Fox I always appreciated their films more, as it seems that the execs of that company generally give a lot of creative freedom to the directors and producers of their films, which is only more the shame that 20th Century Fox is now merging with Disney. Well, at least its nice to see that ‘The Death Cure’ still stayed true to its plans, with director by the end of the film hitting the point of “f*** it” and simply killing off everyone left and right. I actually was surprised as to how many characters died, but I appreciated Wes Ball having the guts to do so, and also from what I understand he stayed fairly true to the original novels, so good job to him on that also! Generally speaking even though this is a fairly dumb and not particularly brain-challenging franchise, all of these films have been fairly enjoyable, including ‘The Death Cure’, and even though I doubt I’ll remember much of these films, if they ever come up in my mind, I will look back at them fondly. 

Overall score: 6/10

TOP MOVIE QUOTE: “Three years we’ve spent behind walls trying to breakout, and now we want to break back in.” “Hilarious, isn’t it?”