Red Hot Reviews- “Maze Runner: Scorch Trials”

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Tara Lawson, Staff Reporter

“Maze Runner: Scorch Trials” outdid its predecessor in more ways than one. It had a larger cast, more varied settings and a longer run-time, but these factors did not make it better than the first. Although it was entertaining, it had its bland moments.

The movie is based on the book by the same name, which was written by James Dashner and adapted into a screenplay by T.S. Nowlin.

The sequel starts where the first movie left off, as Thomas, played by Dylan O’Brien, leads what’s left of the Gladers out of the maze and into a new challenge.

After being rescued by a helicopter, the Gladers are taken to a “safe” facility to rest until they can be transported to a safe haven. However, Thomas discovers that they aren’t completely out of the dark when he meets Aris Jones, played by Jacob Lofland, who shows Thomas what they do to the Gladers when they get transported to the “safe haven.” As a result, Thomas decides the group should leave to find others who can take them to a safe place.

Throughout the movie, Thomas remains in the spotlight, making decisions for the group despite the opinions of others. Continuing off the first movie, he is put in the light as The Chosen One, which can also be compared to Tris in “Divergent” or Katniss in “The Hunger Games”. Having a character be the catalyst, or the reason, for major events is no new element.

This movie can also be compared to “World War Z” because in multiple scenes zombie-like creatures appeared, called cranks, that would try and bite the characters.

“The difference [between the movies] is the cranks decay and are less likely to move, but in “World War Z”, they stayed fast the entire time,” said Senior Tyler Aument. “All zombie movies are the same, just different versions of each other.”

Some of the scenes could be frightening to small children because the cranks pop out suddenly in some scenes and make loud noises.

The back half of the movie dragged on as the Gladers continue looking for people in the mountains who supposedly could take them to a real “safe haven.” Too much time was spent filming them walking with few obstacles along the way.

Toward the end, it got a bit more violent. Guns and numerous fighting scenes take place, which adds excitement since the middle offered very little in the way of nail-biting adventure.

Overall, the movie was interesting because it really did fit into multiple genres, such as action, sci-fi and thriller, but it should only receive 6.9 out of 10 stars as a PG-13 movie, which is appropriate due to intense fighting scenes, gore and the use of profanities.

Freshman Joey Zakariya said he liked the whole movie because it has great action scenes, and he would recommend the movie to “anybody who has seen “The Maze Runner” or read the books and to anyone who likes a good action or adventure movie.”