The Maze Runner

As an old science-fiction fan (and I mean really old, going back to the days of pulp magazines and two-bit paperbacks), I was looking forward to seeing The Maze Runner, despite the lukewarm reviews. I was still feeling positive about it for the first hour. I and the young men confined were still trying to figure out what the maze was all about, why they were being confined there, who had put them there. Their society in what they called The Glade was reminiscent of the society of boys in Lord of the Flies, but made up of boys older and more numerous than in Lord of the Flies, and was probably more organized. Lots of mysteries to resolve: the ascending box that once a month delivered supplies and a new “greenie” to the glade; the memory loss of the new arrivals; the walls which daily opened to allow the runners to explore the maze, trying to find a way out of their enclosure;

the grievers that roamed the maze at night—large, nasty, salivating bug-like creatures that killed any runner who didn’t make it back before the walls shut. The newest arrival, Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) has occasional flashback in which he remembers who he was and where he came from, but not why he and the others were sent to this prison in the middle of a maze. Up to here I was still the old sci-fi fan, still positive about what I was seeing. But then the second hour happened during which the story became ever sillier and more nonsensical. Thomas and Minho (Ki Hong Lee) run the maze to discover the exit, battling several salivating grievers in over-long, chaotically filmed sequences. But (Whew!) they made it back out in time for the last delivery from the mysterious depths, this time with a young female who had an attached note telling them there would be no more deliveries. After three years of once-a-month deliveries, this would be the last. And then the conclusion, which not only didn’t answer my questions but which inconclusively and blatantly told us there would be a Maze Runner 2 and a Maze Runner 3, etc. All these young adult dystopian sci-fis (like Hunger Games and Insurgent) want to create money-making film franchises. But I don’t think Maze Runner will make it beyond this first installment.