Spoiler Heavy Film Reviews – The Maze Runner

Yay, it's film review time. I’m going to review the films I see here. I say review, most will probably be critical rants and will be spoiler heavy. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

For this, I’ve created a rating system called the “Projectile-Vometer”. It is a rating system based on how close the film brought me to vomiting everywhere, violently and profusely.

A low score is good – maybe there is a little bit of throwing up in your mouth, but only because of the giddy excitement that overwhelms one when baring witnessing to divine wonder. A high score means the film induced awful, awful projectile vomiting, maybe lasting for days, and possibly explosive diarrhoea (e.g. Avatar).

Review time

Today I was invited to go and see “Labyrinth” at the cinema. I was filled with glee! “Yay!” thought I. “Jennifer Connelly, puppets, David Bowie running around upside-down on Escher stairs, the Bag Lady…” But alas, it was “Le Labyrinthe” – or “The Maze Runner” to give it its English title.

Source: screenrant.com

A quick look online and the plot synopsis did not bode well. It’s based on a series of young-adult targeted books (sigh). Keywords “Teenagers” and “post-apocalyptic” induced some pre-film gastric distress, and I was tempted to stay in and watch “Battle Royale” instead. But I decided to be social and arrived at the cinema armed with Settler’s Tums and Accupressure Wrist Bands for Nausea to see me through.

Plot summary...

Each month, a teenage (30 year old?) boy (except for one lucky girl) awakens in the middle of a grassy field, “The Glade”, having had their memory almost completely erased. The Glade is located in the middle of a giant, excessively walled labyrinth that can rearrange itself. Also some supplies are sent up with the teenager. It’s Lord of the Flies meets… Labyrinth? But, <<SPOILER WARNING>> there are no puppets or Jennifer Connelly.

This film is noteworthy for…

...containing the most excessively forceful injection ever administered
...the title maze (le labyrinthe) being almost completely superfluous to the events of the story
...weird brainwashing scene product placement for musical theatre: 

"Wicked is good... Wicked is good...".

WARNING –SPOILER HEAVY! SPOILERS AT EVERY MOMENT! I WILL SPOIL THIS FILM FOR YOU!

What happens...

We enter the film as the protagonist, Thomas, wakes up in the field, and is heckled by all the other Glade-folks, so that he freaks out completely, rather than being calmly introduced to his plight. In fact the whole beginning of the film suffers from this approach, and it annoyed me very much. Basically the first 30% of the film could be avoided if someone would just explain everything to Thomas. I mean, I’ve pretty much summed up the key information in two sentences in my plot summary. But Thomas is dripped-fed disjointed pieces of basic and vital information. His questions are ignored, or answered with needlessly terrified, starey silences and cut-aways. “How did any of you know how to farm goats or grow corn when your memories have been erased” or “Where am I?” being just two such questions. If the idea is to not-freak-him-out then it’s a bit late, given the way they handle someone waking up from drug-induced amnesia.

Thomas is warned not to go into the labyrinth (no one even explains it is a labyrinth – as far as Thomas knows it’s just a big wall), and then is violently tackled to the ground when he does what any sensible person would do, i.e. ignore the fuck out of that shit and try to leave via the giant gap in the giant wall ASAP. Then everyone is angry at him. Injustice!!! At this point, vomit was bubbling up in my throat despite the wrist bands, but I forced it down. “Surely NOW someone will explain something to him and all will be well”, thought I naively.

And so they begin –

“It’s a scary maze that rearranges itself every night, but later on in the film I will ignore this fact and reveal an accurate, 3D map I constructed out of sticks” says one guy who clearly uses all the hair-gel that arrives with the supplies each month. What hardship!

“If you stay in the maze at night you will die, because “Grievers”, giant semi-robotic spiders or something, will hunt you and kill you. Except I’m not sure how we know any of that, because I’m also about to explain that no one has ever seen a Griever and lived to tell about it, and all we know is that no one who stays in at night ever comes back. Because of the Grievers. That no one has ever seen. Or lived to tell about. Yeah.”

“I’m a pudgy, innocent child character”, exclaims a pudgy, innocent child character, “I hope I don’t die! Bond with me!”.

“I’m in Game of Thrones” says another.

“Also, sometimes we get turned into sort-of-zombies” says a sort-of-zombie guy. “Blargle-argle”.

And so the film ticks along for a while, never managing to be thrilling, but also not to bore. Most of the characters are likeable, even the “bad” ones. Game of Thrones guy is landed with delivering some terrible dialogue, but manages to get us through it quickly. A token girl arrives, but thank God they manage to keep the film pathetic-teen romance free. Although in this film she also contributes very little.

There is a lot of going into the maze which is better than not-much-going-into-the-maze. Grievers give chase inefficiently, having been programmed mainly to kill only extras, but waste time roaring in the face of central characters. There is a lot of maze running – and the maze is interesting but with no real sense of mystery or jeopardy. It needs a good Bog of Eternal Stench. Or that guy with eyes in his hands.

Source: Pan's Labyrinth. Image from images2.fanpop.com

With regards to the running, “The Best Runners” are chosen to enter the maze. But they all head off at a dramatic sprint, rather than a realistic, sustainable distance-running pace. And no one sweats. Also a panoramic shot of the maze is probably supposed to make it look impressively large, but in fact there is probably only a good 30-40 minutes of running involved in getting from the middle to the sides. No time is taken to portray the labyrinth as a mysterious, threatening place, the journey through which is arduous. In fact, when a large group enter the maze, frequent journey-montage cutting allows the little fat kid to keep up with all the athletic 30 year-olds with ease. Hunger Games had the same problem by undermining its central premise – i.e. everyone was supposed to die mainly from the arduous conditions, but in fact the climate was warm and they all had ample food and water at all times. Here, the labyrinth might as well be a big open room.

There is an infuriating giant spider attack scene in the middle. Moments are well shot – one shot in particular reminded me of Limbo, which was a nice touch.

A beautiful scene that is not in the film. Source: www.platformnation.com

Other moments are careless, such as when a group of people hide from the giant spiders whilst carrying lit torches. A moment that I found to be genuinely horrible due to a well-delivered scream is instantly ruined by a sarcastic one-liner. Where (non-special edition) Battle Royale excels beyond any other film in this genre is the fact that it allows the kids to be kids – they are frightened and scream and cry for their parents when they are about to die/are dying horribly. Their reactions are believable, and each death is poignant despite the large number of characters. Here, as for Hunger Games, everyone is always stoic and defiant, ready to die heroically for the cause they believe in at any given moment. Thus, the characters are rather flat and no death matters.

Then comes the end. The end is stupid. It was obvious from the start that this was all part of some giant rat-maze test, but given the reason for the test, the set-up of the maze makes no sense whatsoever. It’s like they just throw together every possible apocalyptic scenario ever as a justification. “There was an apocalyptic solar event… uh… virus… zombies… thing. We needed a vaccine and presumably sun block… something about immunity… so we built a giant robot spider maze and put you in it and then, later, had the giant spiders leave the maze to kill you so that we could test why you have immune brain. Presumably because all the books on immunology where destroyed during the sun explodey virus zombie thing?

Ok, so clearly some other stuff is going on to be revealed in future films, but even as a half-way explanation, this is nonsensical. I don’t know if it is as bad in the book, but here the exposition is just confusing and strange. Also, a final key moment in the film requires that one of the teen-adults who originally chooses to stay behind rather than leave, then changes his mind, passes an army of giant spiders whilst obtaining a functioning electronic key from one such spider, then deciphers a complicated pass-code that only one character in the film (not him) could potentially have solved (and stated was a guarded secret) in order to get through the labyrinth and catch up with everyone. Say whaaaaat?

Another thing that annoyed me was the blatant Central Character Conceit, or CCC as no one ever calls it. The moment Thomas arrives, everyone and everything is centred around him. When he isn’t on screen, all the other characters are asking “Where’s Thomas?” When under attack, they scream for Thomas, the person they just met, rather than any of the other people they have built a community with over a period of years. “Help me Thomas! Help me” they cry.

How much vomit? 

So rating time!!! I’m going to give this film a 47% on the projectile vometer. 

Image source: boatingtimesli.com

 47% vomit 

Some sick came up in my throat and made me choke a little. A few chunks went into my mouth, but I was able to swallow them. Maybe it was the Accupressure wrist bands or the fact I hadn’t eaten in a while – but the roughly two hours passed efficiently and vomit free. I don’t care whether or not I see the sequel and I won’t make any special effort to see this again. On the other hand, I was entertained enough to be really annoyed by someone using their stupid giant brighter-than-the-sun phone in the middle of the cinema.


I should also add that as a result of watching this film, I now have a strong desire to watch Labyrinth again. I've been singing songs from Labyrinth all day at work. So it's only fitting that I end this review with a link to the best dream sequence ever made. Also did you know that the choreography for Labyrinth was done by Gates McFadden i.e. Dr. Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation? Is there anything she can't do? Thank you for this Gates McFadden. Thank you.

The masquerade ball scene from Labyrinth.