Plenty of horror/thriller films have done this sort of storyline before, but my movie mind points back to Vincenzo Natali’s Cube as the closest comparison. Seven strangers trapped in an endless maze have to survive and find a way out (potentially). If you have never experienced Cube, I highly recommend it — it is amazing.
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Anyway, The Maze Runner starts off similar fashion. We’re immediately introduced to our protagonist, Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), as he is lifted from the bottom of wherever he came (it’s not exactly clear) in a caged elevator. When the elevator stops, Thomas is immediately introduced to his new group of strangers/survivors, who live freely on a small plot of land, and everyone is beautifully baffled.
This is how you start a film off, folks. You, the audience, are as confused as Thomas, and as he begins to discover his surroundings, his group and his choices, the audience is discovering that for the first time as well. You’re wanting answers as much as Thomas and you’ll be willing to wait it out to see them uncovered. The setup for this film will keep you glued to the screen, dying to find out what the hell is happening. My goodness, it’s a perfect hook — well, unless you read the books, then you know what’s going on.
As the story progresses towards act two, and Thomas gets his shit together, we’re introduced to the infamous ‘maze’ in the film, which is described by the residents in the village as a death trap that is ever changing from day to day. People who are trapped in the maze never come out alive. No one has figured out the solution and no one has really wanted to figure it out due to the whole ‘death’ thing. As the old saying goes, if you stare into the abyss too long, sooner or later it will start staring back — this is how the maze works.
The story at this point starts to really unfold. Thomas’ past begins to unravel a bit, we learn about the awful grievers that reside inside the maze (and what one sting from them can do) and Thomas’ presence inside the village seems to not only disrupt the maze, but also the residents of the village. Act two seems like a muddled mess, but in hindsight it is used to push everyone’s eyes towards getting through the maze — even in a forceful manner. What’s even better about act two is that it still maintains that confusing aspect that the movie started out on. You still have no clue about the maze, who controls it, what Thomas’ purpose is or what’s going to happen to everyone. It’s nuts, but the movie still has you hooked here.
Now, I’m dying to reveal what happens in act three, but in doing so it would be an awful injustice to writer James Dasher and director Wes Ball. I will say that another person shows up in the village to help propel Thomas to his purpose in the plot — and ‘she’ helps to push the story, as a whole, forward even further. Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) is pivotal to the movie and story’s functionality. Without her, nothing progresses. Having said that, this movie pretty much gives her that one-dimensional role through out and she serves no real purpose beyond it. She almost feels like a plant or even a McGuffin of sorts. I have never read the books, so maybe this is how she was in the stories, but I would imagine they built her up a bit more in the novels — this was not the case in the movie.
Anyway, the third act reveals a lot, and creates more questions that go unanswered (at least for the time being), and it really ends well and leaves you wanting more.
Overall, this is one helluva start for what could be a nice trilogy. If Fox and Wes Ball can hang on to the momentum they created with The Maze Runner, then they have a legitimate shot at a solid trilogy. Regardless, watch The Maze Runner. It will keep you intrigued and interested.
On the presentation side of things, the digital version of this film looks solid in HD. While I still prefer discs these days, digital delivery like this is certainly an easy and welcomed sight. This is my fifth digital download in the last three weeks and I must admit the quality is just as good as Blu-ray, if not better in some respects, and the portability of movies in digital is so darn convenient. I might have to continue this trend with digital movies, as it seems like a solid way to go.
Speaking of solid, seeing special features with digital delivery is great. It’s even more incentive to go this route. Anyway, here’s what you’re looking at in terms of features with The Maze Runner in DigitalHD:
– Audio Commentary
– Navigating the Maze
– Visual Effects
– The Chuck Diaries
– Deleted Scenes
– Gag Reel
– Ruin
For a cheaper route to go, you get an amazing amount of extras. The featurettes on the maze are brilliant, the deleted scenes are plentiful (9 in total, around 18 minutes worth), the visual effects featurettes explain a lot of how they brought the maze and area to life (I liked this one the most) and the audio commentary and ‘Ruin’ are quite interesting.
There’s a lot here for a film delivered on a non-disc format. You have to give 20th Century Fox some props for bringing their ‘A’ game with this digital movie.