Maze Runner The Scorch Trials review: “Average, long and tedious”

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials review: Tedious, utterly boring and very, very long.

Scorch Trials review

The Maze Runner gained a decent amount of commercial acclaim back in 2013. In the next installment of the story, called Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, which is released in cinemas this week, and is based on the novel by James Dashner. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials sees Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and the other ‘Glazers’ facing the organisation known as WCKD head-one. After completing the maze in the first movie, Thomas and his crew venture into ‘the Scorch,’ a desolate landscape filled with many obstacles, and indeed many undesirable characters, most of whom are infected with the deadly disease known as ‘The Flare.’

I was a fairly late-comer to the series of movies which have been adapted from James Dashner’s novels. The Scorch Trials, the middle installment in the trio of books from the author, is an action-adventure quite clearly aimed at the young adult/ teen market. Led by Dylan O’Brien‘s Thomas, accompanied by returning Glaze members Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Minho (Ki Hong Lee), The Scorch Trials is a very lengthy adaptation of the novel of the same name, once again directed by the supremely talented Wes Ball.

Scorch Trials review

The film starts off with the best intentions; quite clearly a new chapter in the story of this young group of survivors who are rescued by a mysterious team of resistance fighters, led by Game Of Thrones alumni Aiden Gillen as Jensen. The opening scenes which are set within the colony where the Glazers are fed, cleaned, clothed and calmed from their previous adventures are involving, with enough intrigue of what’s to come. However, when the plot starts to evolve, and the new many action sequences unleashed, this ‘28 Days Later-like’ sequel fails to deliver on so many levels.

Scorch Trials review

While I’m sure that this film will indeed appeal to the intended market,  I found the countless action sequences cumbersome, laborious, tedious and utterly boring. It’s quite outlandish to make such a claim, but this is an action film that has to engross for a whopping 130 minutes. It’s a super-long movie.

While action-packed, pretty much from the off, The Scorch Trials fails to captivate with the set-pieces, which aren’t anything that we’ve seen before. Two thirds in, there’s a ‘suspense-filled sequence that is a blatant rip-off of the only decent scene in Spielberg’s The Lost World: Jurassic Park (it involves glass), and is a perfect example of the regurgitated, very-average pop-apocalyptic content on offer throughout.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials review by Paul Heath, September 2015.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials opens in UK and US cinemas from 10th September, 2015.