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If you’d have asked me a week ago what The Maze Runner was, I would have sarcastically said, ‘Someone who runs in a maze,’ scoffed at my own hilarity, and gone back to my margarita. Ask me now and I’ll tell you it’s about someone who runs in a maze, but I’ll actually know what I’m talking about!
I saw The Maze Runner at the cinema last night and all I knew before was that it was set in a dystopian future, it was similar to The Hunger Games, and Dylan O’Brien was in it. That was enough. I like anything dystopian. It’s a great word.
I’ll try to keep this review relatively spoiler-free, because I highly recommend you go see the movie. It opens with Thomas waking up in an ascending elevator and then being surrounded by a group of boys in a field. Now, usually I’d love this – but I was just as scared and terrified and clueless as Thomas, and I spent most of the film that way. I loved every second of it.
The first thing you have to notice is the visuals. They’re stunning. The Glade and the intricate workings of the maze, the weird giant semi-bionic scorpion griever things – it’s all beautiful. The aerial shot of the maze at the end of the movie is breath-taking. And some of the boys – who are definitely of legal age – were delicious! To the Asian runner with the quiff and the big arms: How would you like to live under my skirt?
The Maze Runner is well paced, interesting, gripping, and intriguing. I can’t sing its praises high enough. After the movie finished, my friend and I were getting a taxi home from a nearby supermarket, and I immediately went in and bought the book. I want to know what happens. I need to know what happens. I’m already half way through.
The movie did successfully for its book what The Hunger Games movies did for that book. It made me want to know more! I want to know the lore, I want to know why the maze is there, I want to know why the boys in the Glade are put there. I want the sequel! Right now!
The casting director has my applause too. Dylan O’Brien was great as the movie’s protagonist. I empathised with him and wanted to know why he was important, just like he did – and most importantly, I didn’t want him to be thrown into the pit by that kid from We’re the Millers with the weird eyebrows. He was an excellent villain! Who’da thunk?
And Olive Prenderghast’s mum! YAAAAAAAASSSS! She was fabulous and mysterious! Anything Patricia Clarkson is in I’m sold on.
Go see it. Just go see it, then tweet at me (@scottbalf) and tell me how brilliant it was! I rate it 5 barely-legal hot teenagers out of 5 – and I’m only 22, so it’s okay for me to use that as my rating scale!
