Maze Runner: The Death Cure, a solid sendoff
MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE -2018- Dir. Wes Ball//Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen
Jack Lewis’ rating (on a scale from A+ to F): B
Many movie buffs will remember the brief craze for young adult dystopian movies that swept over Hollywood a few years back. Following the massive success of The Hunger Games in 2012, studios began to release numerous similar productions and, albeit briefly, the genre challenged superhero films for box office dominance. Over time though, the general public’s enthusiasm for these movies began to wane and movie companies choose to shut down a majority of their projects in the genre as of early 2017.
As production had been pushed back nearly a year due to the gruesome on-set injuries of star Dylan O’Brien, Maze Runner: The Death Cure is from that forgotten time. Therefore, despite being the concluding chapter of a fairly popular trilogy, the film came out with little fanfare and only brought back moderate returns ($283 million dollars worldwide on a budget of $62 million). It represents the long expected and somewhat timid conclusion to a previously prominent genre.
But how is the film itself?
The most glaring issue of The Death Cure is it’s length. Coming in at a whopping 142 minutes, this film is far longer than it needs to be, a recurring problem in major Hollywood blockbusters nowadays. The consequences of this is that the final act of the movie really drags and some of the emotional punch that film could have is lost. Moreover, this film is pretty generic. Once again, we are presented with a group of gifted, yet down on their luck teens facing off against an evil organization that wants to kill them. The film is also overloaded littered with YA genre cliches such as a completely unnecessary love triangle. Although a lot of this is due to the bland James Dashner novel this film is based off of, it certainly hurts the movie.
That being said, the movie does distinguish itself from previous YA franchises. In my opinion, the major issue with past series was the dramatic drop in quality between installments. Fans became less and less excited with each film and eventually chose to bail out on the series all together. This can be seen in the disappointing box office tallies for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2 and the utter failure that was The Divergent Series: Allegiant.
The Death Cure though is actually, in my opinion, by far the best of its trilogy. The movie includes many imaginative and entertaining action sequences. In particular, the opening action scene involving a train and a heli-jet is really neat and sets the film off on a really good note. Additionally, O’Brien returns delivers an excellent performance as the leading man; he really sells the internal conflict of his character Thomas and absolutely nails his stunts. If a studio is able to finally get O’Brien a good script in a future movie us audiences will be in for a real treat.
Furthermore, the character relationships developed in the Death Cure are particularly strong, specifically the one between Thomas and Newt, played by the always fantastic Thomas Brodie-Sangster. In this world full of zombies and hovercrafts, their grounded relationship enables the audience to relate to their situation to a degree. I consider their friendship to be the highlight of the movie as a whole and I was truly moved by their story.
To conclude, The Death Cure is the best YA dystopian film since Hunger Games: Catching Fire in 2013 due to its solid performances and action setpieces. Besides, the movie’s message about the importance of loyalty and tearing down walls is both craftily depicted and extremely relevant to the real world. If you are even remotely interested in this film, give it a chance and watch it through legal means. It is probably the last movie in this genre you will see for quite a while anyway.
