The Scorch Trials: A Blind Review
Disclaimer: I haven’t watched this movie or its trailer or its imdb page or its rotten tomatoes score or anything; here is my review.
The Scorch Trials is the second movie in, what will most likely become, a four part movie trilogy adaptation of the a teenage post-apocalyptic fiction thriller book of the same name.
The movie takes place in a time immediately after where the first movie ended and all the characters that didn’t suffer PG deaths are back; slightly-introverted-but-ultimately-the-handsome-leader Protagonist, protagonists-unlikely-best-friend, that-one-guy-who-the-protagonist-butts-heads-with-and-doubts-the-leadership-of-whom-ultimately-serves-only-to-create-internal-conflict, the-guy-who-doesn’t-like-the-protagonist, the-nerdy-one-no-one-appreciates-except-for-the-protagonist and female character #1. Except, they can now be referred to in their group form by taking the one trait they all share in common and adding the suffix “-er”. (This is also the name the fan base gives themselves.)
Furthermore there are also new characters that are introduced, their main purpose is to suffer PG deaths so there can be some mild consequences to the crazy stakes proposed by the movie. The most notable introduced character is female character #2 who is very different to female character #1 in maybe three ways, including hair colour, but basically the same in every other way that really matters to us.
As far as acting goes, this movie is mostly populated by teenagers and young adults except for that one famous person whose name is dragged into this movie for credibility. Said famous person is obviously too good for this role and does well in it. Ultimately though, this just hints at how their career has fallen since they were in their prime.
The kids act as well as they could. Female character #1 is played by “Prettiest Girl Who Showed Up For Auditions” and does a good job. She is even given an emotional scene to pull off, mostly because her high levels of estrogen help with the tears, but also because Protagonist needs a submissive female by his side to raise his own masculinity. However, quite like the movie she is in, let’s not give too much attention to her.
Protagonist is the real hero of the movie. Continuing his stellar character development from the previous film, universal-one-syllable-name is as generic and bland as ever. Watching him be equally shy and leading and, self-doubting and brimming with inner-conviction is a delight to watch play-out. The movie also continues to build upon Protagonist's backstory through a series of twist reveals that are all ground-breaking in nature; it was revealed that Protagonist is at the maximum one-family-tree-line away from a major player in the overarching mystery that holds this franchise together.
That mystery is obviously; what? What happened before? Whats happening now? Whats happening after this? And the movie follows as our group of heroes go about trying to answer these questions and get simultaneously closer and further away from finding the truth. Speaking of which, that cliff-hanger! It was almost as if the film cut-to-black during what any other movie would have considered a climax. Ground-breaking!
The plot of this movie, much like its females characters, is underdeveloped and lacking in presence. And, again quite like it’s female characters, the plot’s only purpose is to give Protagonist opportunities to do brave/manly/cool-looking things. On the other hand, the main difference between plot and the female characters is; the plot is the Protagonist’s main goal.
This movie includes some set-pieces as 8-year old would describe as “super awesome”. Most notably that one where Protagonist has to go back to save one of the other members of the clique who messed up, thereby saving him from mortal danger. Or, the other action sequence where many improbable things had to happen at the same time and then come together at the end.
Speaking of sets, this instalment builds upon the world established in the last film. The characters are now exposed to new environments with new rules and with that comes new post-apocalyptic terminology. It is obvious that this movie, at one point, recorded a campfire lit conversation where all the heroes sat down and explained these new terms and what they meant, mostly as an aid for the audience. Unfortunately, this scene was probably cut out during the editing process, as 93 minutes is already pushing the average 12 year old’s attention span.
The artistic direction of this movie is an often inhomogeneous mixture between barely present and “so in your face it hurts”. This can be seen as a director’s response to when there hasn’t been something cool on screen for 11 minutes, usually those boring moments of plot-movie conversation. Therefore the next sequence is filmed from an upside-down mirrored shaky cam on a drone angle to keep it interesting. This was a good decision from the director as dumbfoundment is a stronger emotion than confusion or boredom.
In conclusion, this movie was made with a clear demographic in mind and it catered to it in many respects. This does alienate a more mainstream audience from finding enjoyment in it. However, it does mean that those who lost their frontal cortex in the war now have a go to movie.
Final Score: ★★★★☆
