Movie Breakdown: Maze Runner – The Death Cure

Pre-Screening Stance:

Will Maze Runner – The Death Cure be the walk-off home run that the series so desperately needs in order to make the YA film hall of fame?  Probably not, but I’ve seen weirder things happen.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Maze Runner – The Death Cure is long, boring and dumb.  I can’t say I was expecting much from it, especially after the uninspired Scorch Trials, but I thought that maybe series director Wes Ball would go all out for the finale just for the hell of it.  Well, he sort of did – this movie feels like the biggest of the three – but it’s a completely forgettable effort simply because there’s nothing in it worth caring about.  Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his super friends are barreling towards the end goal of freedom and no overseers, which seems like it should be important, but it gets glossed over by their strong desire to find the captured Minho (Ki Hong Lee).  This mostly just gets a bunch of nameless young-ins killed  Isn’t the goal to save everyone?  It’s so stupid!  Also, it’s really tedious.  The damn movie should have been called Maze Runner – Where’s Minho?.  There’s bunch of other stupid things at play here as well – like a super-secret-may-not-even-be-real city that has an enormous amount of refugees living outside of it, everyone’s perfectly stylized hair, and a “this is why you’re special” ending that’s super anticlimactic – but there’s no real need to dive into any of that.  Just skip this one and go live your life.

One Last Thought:

This is a completely spoiler-filled last thought, so if this movie is important to you DO NOT read any further.  OK.  Here I go.  Towards the end of the film Thomas gets shot and barely makes it out of a burning building.  As he’s being dramatically saved, he passes out and then wakes up on an island with all of his friends and a bunch of young refugees.  His unconsciousness, I assume, only lasted a day or so, but when he rises, the new (and only previously dreamed of) colony is fully built.  There’s huge tents and established traditions and shit.  How long was Thomas asleep?!  Years?  Why did he not seem at all fazed by a fully realized village that was built while he was napping?  I found this to be more unbelievable than a villain group called WICKED.