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n The Maze Runner (2014)
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nDirector: Wes Ball
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nCast: Dylan O’Brien,nKaya Scodelario, Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Blake Cooper
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nThe Maze Runner comes as a direct response to the success ofnThe Hunger Games (2012) and its sequels. After The Hunger Games made huge banknat the box office, suddenly there’s been a rash of subversive films aimed atnthe teen audience. I’m talking about films like Divergent (2014) and The Host (2013),nfilms where youth resist the status quo, films where the young want to stand upnfor themselves and change things. To tell you the truth, I’m not a huge fan ofnThe Hunger Games, I don’t know what it is about that franchise, to me it isn’tnas big of a deal as they make it out to be. I mean, I love Subversive Cinema,nbut that doesn’t mean I’m gonna love everything that shows a bit of anrebellious streak to it. I mean, there is such a thing as subversive crap. Sonyeah, of course I rolled my eyes a little bit when I heard about The MazenRunner because honestly, it just seemed like more of the same, and in manynways, it is. But then I saw the trailer and the whole idea behind the mazengrabbed me; cause I’m a sucker for movies about mazes, puzzles and labyrinths.nSo anyhow, was The Maze Runner subversive crap, or what is a decent film?
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nThis film has a lot of similarities with an obscure sciencenfiction flick from the 90’s called Cube (1997), in fact, it plays withnessentially the same idea, but on a much bigger scale. Cube was the littlenengine that could, a completely independent film that became a cult success andnspawned two sequels: Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) and Cube Zero (2004). All thesenCube films played with the same premise; that of a group of strangers withntheir memories wiped out, who suddenly find themselves trapped inside of anmysterious cube that seems to change every now and again. Together they have tonget past their differences in order to survive the deadly cube and escape tonthe outside world, if there in fact is one. The Maze Runner uses that same exact premise,nbut in a giant moving labyrinth! The problem is that the kids trapped in thenlabyrinth don’t know why they are there; they don’t even know who they are. Tontop things off, they are afraid to venture out into the Labyrinth. Whatnmysteries lie beyond their comfort zone?
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nSo yeah, this movie was pressing all the right buttons fornme cause I like movies that want to expose how crazy the world we live in is, Inmean, society, it’s all kinds of messed up. We gotta live in this crazy world,nand we gotta figure it out. Like a maze, that literally wants to kill us. Innthis sense I dug The Maze Runner, which is saying a lot because I went in readynto hate the hell out of it. Thankfully, it had some interesting themes to it.nThe movie is basically saying we’re all part of some sort of an experiment thatnthe powers that be are conducting on us. That idea that the system is alwaysnwatching us, that there is some ulterior motive behind their actions, that theynare analyzing us and that we are oblivious to it, or choose to ignore it and conform.nThis is one of those movies where ‘they’ want to know what makes us tick, whynwe are who we are, so they can control us better. In this way, The Maze Runner alsonreminded me of Alex Proya’s Dark City (1998), a film that plays with similar themes.nFor example, in Dark City humanity is also part of an experiment and same as thenlabyrinth in The Maze Runner is always changing so does Dark City’s constantlynchanging city, hell, even the idea that the main character does not remembernwho he is was also used in Dark City. So we could easily say that The MazenRunner is a mix between Cube and Dark City, with a bit of The Hunger Games. In other words, not terribly original.
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nWhat I did like was the maze itself which is this hugenmechanical thing, constantly changing, usually trying to kill the young kidsntrying to solve it. Whenever the kids would run into the maze, the film turnsninfinitely more exciting. My only gripe with the film is these CGI monstersnthat the kids have to fight when they go into the maze. For me it’s snoresvillenwhenever characters start to fight computer generated beasties, I don’t know,nit just bores the hell out of me; to me all these creatures look the same, tonme they are all in one big blur. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t solely focus onnthese creatures and the story moves on, digging deeper into the mystery behindnthe labyrinth. Ultimately, what I enjoyed the most about the film is how itnmirrors life. We are born into this world not knowing anything, others guidenus, teach us. Then comes a point where we take the reins of our own life andnbecome masters of our own destinies, searching for that ever elusive truth;nwhich is usually covered by an avalanche of lies. Only the ones curious enoughndare to begin that search, dare to ask the questions.
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nSo in conclusion, The Maze Runner is an amalgamation of manynfilms and books that came before it. I’ve already mentioned some of the filmsnthat influenced The Maze Runner, but I’d also add a little bit of WilliamnGolding’s Lord of the Flies into the mix of influences because same as Golding’snclassic book, the film also speaks of mans natural tendency to fight each other,nto form clans, to separate and of course, the resulting clashes that come fromndifference of opinions. My last take onnThe Maze Runner is that it isn’t ground breaking cinema, but it will keep younentertained for a while. This is what Hollywood is churning out now, cause it’s a theme that’s hot and it’s also a reflection of how we are feeling about society. On the negative side of things, you do get the feelingnthat they are not giving you a whole lot of information because they arenlooking to set up a sequel, so this first film feels like an introductory tale,nwhere they aren’t really giving you the whole story, there’s a lot ofnexposition, a lot of introductions. You kind of feel like they are stretchingnthings a bit, as if they want to save more of the story for futureninstallments, so yeah, this is obviously another franchise wannabe. Will itnsucceed at the box office? Will it spawn more sequels? How The Maze Runnernfares at the box office will decide that, I personally wouldn’t mind seeingnwhere the story will go from here on in.
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nRating: 3 out of 5
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