'The Maze Runner' doesn't end, it just stops
The Maze Runner breaks Joss Whedon’s cardinal rule of film making, in that it is not a complete story. The fact that The Empire Strikes Back is also not a complete story in its own has actually earned the second Star Wars film a place on Whedon’s list of problematic films. However, at least the Star Wars franchise was told in the style of the serials of yesteryear and was such a phenomenon with beloved character archetypes. The Maze Runner has none of that.
The actors do well with their Lord of the Flies type roles and the amnesia that accompanies each character. Unfortunately, there are a lot of slow parts where the world has to be explained to the Greenie, and then the world has to be explained to everyone else. Of course, none of the explanations are accurate since no one remembers anything. From little thinks like an organization actually using the letters WCKD to form the acronym for its name and then having people say “wicked is good” to big things like NO ENDING. The film breaks its contract with the average audience viewer who has not read James Dashner’s series. The fact that The Maze Runner is not a complete story makes it an entirely unsatisfactory movie going experience. No one wants to wait for the next installment. In what may have been an otherwise promising movie franchise, the disappointment meted out by this first installment is far too much to overcome. In spite of the tensest running sequences since Run, Lola, Run, The Maze Runner is not really worth viewing until the story can be seen in its entirety. Even then, the time investment is probably not worthwhile. The sad part is it would have been an easy thing for the movie to have its cake and eat it, too, by simply moving the last sequence in the film to just after the credits because then it would have become a teaser instead of a non-ending. |
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