Young Adult Month - Maze Runner: The Death Cure

In the not too distant future, after a disaster takes place

An angry guy with Rage Issues, among the last of the human race

He was just a media nerd, he ranted a lot, it was quite absurd

But he was special for some reason, so bad men decided it was Rage Issues season

He’ll star in 3 movies, 4 if we squeeze him dry

He’ll go and join a rebel force, as he’ll slowly lose his mind

Now keep in mind, he’s just a guy, no different from you or me

So, he’ll have to learn how to survive, with the help of YA Movies

Franchise Roll call

The Hunger Games

The Maze Runner

Diiiiiiiivergent

If you’re wondering how he posts his thoughts, and who he’s posting for

Repeat to yourself, it’s just a theme, and stop thinking any more

It’s Young Adult Month!

So we finish the Maze Runner Trilogy with the Death Cure

2018 was a tough year for YA movies, 4 of them released (if you count A Wrinkle in Time, which your mileage may vary on) and 3 of them were flops, I’ll be covering all 3 of the others later this year, but for now, we look at the conclusion to the Maze Runner trilogy.

Whilst this film was successful, it did hit some production issues, including Dylan O’Brien being injured during a stunt and having to take a year off filming, delaying the film. The film hit diminishing returns upon release, whilst still successful, it made only $288m on its $65m budget. If there’s one thing Fox should be given credit for, it’s management on their budget. Overblown budgets on relative unknowns leading to financial flops are sinking films and I hope after the Disney merger, Disney still allows these mid-budget flicks to get produced. Critically, this film managed 42% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average 5.1/10, only a slight drop from the last but significant enough. The audience score is weirdly better at 60% with an average 3.5/5 score

Because the film and the book strayed so far in the last movie, there was no real coming back in this one. The film and book share 3-4 plot points in common, including having similar endings (we’ll get to that) but ultimately they follow their own stories so ranting on the differences between the film and the book would be redundant, instead, I’ll give some positives and negatives on the film alone, summarise and analyse the plot in this movie (only making comparisons when the book and film overlap) and then cover a bit on the book at the end.

I will give them this, it’s a visually interesting movie, the opening set-piece from a technical standpoint looks really good, the city looks nice, I at least get the arc they were going with, with Teresa, it’s well acted, well directed for the most part. The effects, given the budget, look fine along with the makeup effects.

The film opens (6 months after the events of the last one, presumably to account for the lost filming time for O’Brien’s injury) with a rescue attempt as WYKD have decided to transfer their captives by train even though they have fully functioning hover transports that would do the same job (also, what were they doing with them for 6 months?). They manage to rescue about half of the kidnapped kids but the rest, sadly including Mihno are still en-route. Thomas decides to head off alone into the last city, hoping to rescue Mihno, but is soon joined by Newt and Fry and later Brenda and Jorge, so say goodbye to pretty much everyone else.

They find that WCKD have surrounded a part of the city with a massive wall in effort to keep out the virus. But since the virus is airborne it’s pretty much pointless. The group arrive to the outer city, where, oh you have got to be kidding me, WCKD fire upon civilians to get to Thomas, gotta cement them as the bad guys I guess. They find out that Gally somehow survived a spear through the chest and in the first plot-point lifted from the book, although making less sense since he was beaten in the book, not stabbed.

They have a way into the city, and promise some mob boss a lifetime supply of serum if they can make the assault on WCKD HQ. They get in the city and it’s revealed here that their means of getting into WCKD is Teresa, Thomas is uncomfortable with this until he, in another plot point lifted from the book, finds out that Newt is infected, among a control group in the maze that didn’t have immunity. This might’ve been shocking if Winston didn’t get infected in the last movie.

With renewed determination, they capture Teresa and gain entry, rescuing the kids, but Minho is elsewhere, prompting Thomas and Newt to fight their way to him. I should mention, there’s some major problems going on at WCKD, they thought Mihno might have the cure, and get approval for human trials on him (why do they need that? Worst case scenario is he has the same delaying serum they drain from everyone) they use VR to simulate the maze trials, despite him already being a survivor and it not being necessary before, and initially believe to have results, but it’s sadly just as temporary, which upsets Teresa and basically drives Ava to give up.

Until Teresa finds out about Brenda still being fine, turns out Thomas has some super-special blood or something that is the key to the cure of the flare, he escapes with Newt and Minho but as the remaining kids are taken outside the city, all hell begins to break loose as the Cranks blast their way through the walls. It’s around this point that Newt succumbs to the infection, killing himself when Thomas refuses to do so.

Teresa broadcasts herself and Thomas reports back to WCKD, to Ava, but Ava is killed by an infected Janson. He wants the cure for himself and select others but Teresa helps Thomas escape and Jansen’s eventually killed by some Cranks, there’s a ship waiting for them on the roof but Thomas is injured so Teresa sacrifices herself to get him aboard with a vial of cure for some reason. Remember, Thomas has the f*cking cure in his blood, and you can't tell me the Right Arm had only one doctor.

So, they end up at a safe haven, there’s a memorial and Thomas reads a note Newt gave to him earlier that exists just to rub salt in your wounds, despite making us feel sad about Newt’s death, it’s Teresa’s name that he carves on the memorial.

So… yeah, the plot is on about the same level as the last one, it’s clear that T S Nowlin needed someone to rein in his ideas. I get wanting to put your own stamp on a project, but this film makes less sense because of it. They keep going with the anti-bodies idea which is so stupid I want to hit something, and why Thomas has such special anti-bodies remains a mystery.

Frypan has basically nothing to do for most of the movie, neither does Jorge, both are left outside the city because of dumb reasons. The character development in this movie continues to be lacklustre, weirdly I’d say the best is with Ava Paige, as they do their damnest to make her appear at least somewhat sympathetic. Something they’d neglected to try and do in the previous movies. They also set up Janson as more a final boss, which makes sense as he was effectively that in the book and they do a good job of making him hateable.

The ending feels depressing rather than optimistic, for one I don’t recall all the members of the Right Arm being immune, so the flare could still break out among them (Thomas could cure them but there's a lot of them and they can't harvest his blood like WCKD could), that and the letter being just a reminder of Newt being dead, and a memorial to everyone else. I’d rather have gone for the light at the end of the dark tunnel the book went for.

Speaking of the book, here’s a rundown of what happens in the book, there’s a lot of details I’m missing but I don’t want to spoil everything. At the end of the last book, Thomas and a few other survivors of the Scorch Trials have been placed in phase 3, they had individual tests, and for Thomas is an extensive period of isolation. After this, he’s reunited with his friends, and are told that whilst they all have the flare, most of them have natural immunity, unfortunately, there were some control subjects and Newt was one of them, the stress of the trials has accelerated the virus and it will soon overwhelm him.

Janson says that next they plan to restore everyone’s memories, but Thomas doesn’t trust WICKED after their previous mental manipulations, and he and a group of a few others refuse. They’re quickly told that it has become mandatory and plan an escape, stealing a hover transport, they travel into the last refuge, where kids have been going missing and immunes are harshly judged. 

Newt departs from the group, and gives Thomas a note, saying he’d know the time to open it. They quickly find out that Gally is alive and he extends an invitation to join the Right Arm, an anti-WICKED faction. They decide to think about it, not entirely trusting Gally yet.

After an incident where WICKED rescue Thomas from someone wanting to sell him back to WICKED, Janson appears on a screen and warns him that Newt isn’t doing well. He informs the others and they travel to an area inhabited by Cranks, they find Newt and he’s visually angry at Thomas and tells them to leave him alone. Thomas opens the note and it says “Kill me. If you were ever my friend, Kill me”

Thomas is spurred to take Gally up on his offer. The Right Arm have a plan to destroy WICKED HQ but they need someone on the inside to disable security. Thomas volunteers for this job. As he heads on this mission, the Cranks swarm the city, including Newt, and Thomas is forced to live up to his end of the bargain and kill him.

He enters WICKED HQ and Janson tells him that he’s the most promising subject they have, although a new batch of immunes are going through the maze trials as they speak. His brain activity, including his penchant for being rebellious make him the most viable candidate they’ve had but to proceed they need to study his brain, up close. They prepare an operation to remove it, but it’s stopped at the last minute by Ava Paige, who leaves a note for Thomas giving him a map of the complex, including the location of the mazes, the Right Arm and a secret hidden flat trans.

It’s at this point where the Right Arm storm the building, intent on destroying it and caring little about the immunes still trapped inside. Teresa came with the Right Arm and helps Thomas liberate the immunes from the mazes, there’s a Flat Trans to get them away as the bombs begin to destroy the building but Janson was clearly not in on the plan and tries to stop Thomas, Teresa sacrifices herself to stop him as Thomas and the rest of the immunes escape on the Flat Trans to a safe haven.

In the epilogue email it turns out that Ava had instigated her backup plan earlier in the last book by placing Jorge and Brenda in the Scorch Trials. Knowing that finding a cure was, in this book, a long way away if they were even along the right thinking at all, she used this to save what humanity she could.

You might notice the Right Arm are not the definitive good guys here, they don’t like WICKED’s methods and think they could do better themselves, but present no viable alternative option as even WICKED is still some way away from a cure after generations of Maze trial experiments. I like this more, as it shies away from Thomas joining a cause like he does in the films.

Rating 40/100