Director Wes Ball’s third and final entry into the Maze Runner trilogy, “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” proves to be a well-directed, well-acted film that makes up for its bloated runtime and absurd plot with entertaining action scenes and heartfelt relationships.
Dylan O’Brien returns to the franchise to bring the teenage main character, Thomas, back to life. Thomas has grown from the frightened boy who was thrown into the maze in the first installment to a fully-realized action hero.
The world Thomas lives in has been scorched by a solar flare and is victim to a dangerous, incurable virus that essentially turns those infected into zombies dubbed, “cranks.”
An evil government organization, the World in Catastrophe: Killzone Experiment Department, or, WCKD, has taken control of the world’s resources in order to save the people they can and do anything to find a cure.
Thomas and his friends are some of the very few who are naturally immune to the virus. Because of this, WCKD has been experimenting on them for their entire lives. After breaking out of the maze, designed to torture them into producing stronger antibodies against the virus, as seen in the first film, Thomas and his friends have been waging a small revolution against WCKD.
In the beginning of the film, Thomas leads his crew of teenage Abercrombie & Fitch supermodels on a thrilling, “Mad Max: Fury Road,” style train heist to retrieve their friend, Minho, who has been taken by WCKD, that is incredibly well-directed and is genuinely thrilling.
Throughout the film, Thomas and his band of friends are struggling to find Minho and flee somewhere WCKD can no longer find them. Unfortunately, the person who seems to hold the key to the cure is Thomas, so he is vigorously pursued by WCKD.
There are far too many subplots, an overabundance of supporting characters and plenty of cliches in “Maze Runner: The Death Cure.” This makes for a film that is, at times, confusing and horribly paced.
Even fans of the series who have read the books and watched both of the previous installments are bound to be confused at some point in the runtime.
Many sequences fall flat because they lack sufficient intrigue or are tonally inconsistent.
However, the light in the confusing darkness that is the “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” is O’Brien’s charismatic performance and the touching friendship he has with Newt, played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster.
