finraziel Review of Maze Runner: The Death Cure

Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)

Starts out great, but then nose dives and drags on too long

[4/10 · 27 January 2018]

I just watched a Maze Runner marathon, the first two followed by the final instalment. Loved the first one, but hadn't seen the second one yet. I have to say, I didn't think that was anywhere near as bad as it was made out to be. The third one though? Oh boy... Well, it actually starts out really well! Good action and our heroes are able to make a fist against WCKD in a very satisfying way. Unfortunately, the film ends up dragging on seemingly forever. I feel like at least half an hour could have been cut to make it much better. The second half of the film keeps getting more and more boring. The biggest problem is that several of the most important characters are completely unbelievable. Janson (Gillen's character) especially seems to make no sense at all. Then there is a nagging feeling that the whole thing is completely pointless and our 'heroes' are actually wrong! Now that could be very interesting if done right, but the movie is presented entirely as a young adult good guys vs bad guys film and the fact that they may be wrong is not explored at all. If they'd just done nothing, the world would probably have been a better place, but the movie still pretends that they 'won' and everything is fine now. Also, the motivations behind why these kids were put in the maze in the first place are barely explored. It's implied that the pressure is needed to trigger their immunity to grow (why that would be so is beyond me), but most of the kids just sat in the Glade peacefully for years. Instead of exploring those topics, the last half hour or so of the movie is spent watching characters melodramatically stare at each other while war rages around them, inevitably dying because they couldn't get over their teen angst long enough to actually save anyone (except Thomas, he has plot armor). The film just left me feeling like I watched some dimwits that couldn't see the big picture and the survivors now sit on a beach pretending everything is okay (when most likely the infected will just catch up with them and they'll die because they're just sitting there in a couple of beach shacks)...