Though dystopia fatigue may have had something to do with
it, I couldn’t help but come away from The Scorch Trials, the adaptation of
the second novel in the Maze Runner series, feeling weary. Sure, I knew that a sense of “Been-There, Done-That”
would hang over it what with The Hunger Games and Divergent already
occupying most of the brain space I’ve allotted for derivative YA fiction (it
was all I could do to remind myself I was not in Panem, a ravaged version of
Chicago or the Australian outback). Yet,
director Wes Ball was able to help me push these concerns aside last year with The Maze Runner, a well made and at times exciting film that dangled just
enough tantalizing, unanswered questions to keep me engaged throughout.
Unfortunately, that was not to be the case this time, as Scorch is a monotonous, repetitive affair that never builds a head of steam
as Ball allows the story to get consistently sidetracked by one needless
conflict after another. While he and
screenwriter T.S. Nowlin may have felt a responsibility to adapting James
Dashner’s novel to the letter, in the best interest of the story, judicious
editing should have occurred. What is
supposed to be a thrilling journey to a mythical safe haven winds up being a
slow trudge with far too many stops along the way.
When last we left Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his fellow maze
runners, they had just escaped the mysterious labyrinth that had been their
home and were taken in by a well-organized group that gives them a bed and
three squares a day. Problem is, they’re
restricted from moving about and there’s something odd going on where those
chosen for re-assignment is concerned.
It doesn’t take long for Thomas to figure out that he and others like
him are guinea pigs for Dr. Paige (Patricia Clarkson). Seems they’re immune to the plague that’s
sweeping the Earth and the good doctor thinks the key to a cure rests in their
blood. Once Thomas and his pals figure
this out, they escape the facility, into the desert known as the Scorch in an
attempt to reach the mountains beyond and a group of rebels known as the Right
Arm.
Nothing new under the apocalyptic sun here and
the tedium’s made worse by one artificially contrived diversion after
another. There’s two too many zombie
attacks, three too many stops at faux civilizations and I lost count of the
times horribly filmed gun battles broke out.
Had a key character or two died along the way or a major plot twist
ensued, I might have been able to forgive the film’s wheel-spinning nature.
Unfortunately, by the time Scorch’s inevitable ending was finally arrived at,
I felt as though I had been with Thomas every step of the way. I don’t think this was the sort of vicarious
experience Ball and his crew had in mind.
The fact that I am now dreading the final chapter of the Maze Runner saga is an unfortunate side effect of this piece of misguided filmmaking.
This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2015.
