Culture

Rating: A

I can honestly say The Maze Runner surprised me. Having seen the shorts of the movie only last week, I was pretty much expecting an incarnation of The Hunger Games. And I did not like The Hunger Games. At all. So while the two franchises have commonalities, I found the plot of Maze Runner to be infinitely more interesting. Whether that is because of the actors that carried the film, the plotline itself, or just the frankly awesome way the movie was shot is unclear, but hear this: you should see this film.

As near as I can tell, the film takes place in the course of less than a week, but you don’t get the feeling of a rushed plot. A lot of time is spent on getting the audience to understand the characters, understand the Maze, understand the life that the Gladers have built in the three or so years since the first of them arrived, remembering nothing but their names. The cast contains mostly little-known or unknown actors, which I find delightful. There’s nothing worse than watching a film and coming out of the theatre completely unable to remember a character’s name (this happened when I saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower) because Hermione Granger was in it, and isn’t it strange to see her as a Muggle?

Dylan O’Brien, of Teen Wolf fame, has made an excellent transition to film, and I shall be keeping an eye on his work. And does anyone remember the adorable drum playing kid from Love Actually, the one who learned to play because of a wicked crush? Yeah, he’s in there, too. And Christ, do I feel old; wasn’t he ten or something when that came out?! On the whole, the casting of this film was really well done. The characters fit well together, and the formation of relationships is quite interesting to watch.

There isn’t a dull moment in The Maze Runner. I went in expecting to be either bored witless or scared senseless (there were moments, with these hideous biomechanical beasts ... urgh), but I came out thinking it was time well spent.