The Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)
We started with the first movie, so we figured we’d see them all the way through. My boys really enjoy these films, so they wanted to see how the series ended. You can read my reviews for the first film here and the second film here.
The Death Cure picks up where the last one left off, with Thomas attempting to save his friend Minho from the WCKD corporation. The film begins with an elaborate, grandiose train “robbery” to rescue Minho. I was a little confused as to why Minho and the others were being transported on a train, especially since they have pretty advanced jets. I mean, a train is pretty ancient compared to the flying contraption, and it can only move so fast (it wasn’t a super train). If the company was so concerned about a rescue attempt, why make it easy?
Of course, the point was so that Thomas and the other rebels could steal the plane (or jet, I’m not sure what they called in the movie) to be used later in the film. But why would the soldiers in the plane/jet/flying contraption allow themselves to be hijacked? You’re in a plane/jet/flying contraption! You can shoot the rebels from the sky. You don’t need to land and take them into custody. Ugh! Use your brains people!
That was the introduction to the film, and it pretty much set the tone for the rest of the movie. The characters do quite a few things that don’t make a lot of sense, and we don’t get an explanation as to why. As I mentioned in my review of the second film, several of the “immunes” turn out to not be immune, but it’s not explained why. There’s a cryptic comment about them being in the glade with the others so WCKD can tell the immunes from the nonimmunes apart, but that just seems silly. Why waste time and resources on nonimmunes if you’re trying to save the world? And it doesn’t explain why the so-called immunes could still get infected by Grievers.
Like the other films, there was an inordinate amount of running. I even commented that Thomas has been running since the first movie and hasn’t really stopped—he must be getting super tired. Plus, it doesn’t make a lot of sense why he would put himself and his other friends in harm’s way for one person.
Sure, there was the whole promise thing and being true to his word, but at some point I would think that Minho would be like: “Dude, you’re going to die if you come in here. There’s no reason for both of us to be killed.” But maybe Minho is super self-centered and wants others to put themselves at risk to save him. I don’t know. And also: Thomas wouldn’t be the hero and there wouldn’t be a story and we wouldn’t have a dystopian world with a corrupt corporation that has to be destroyed if he didn’t go after his friend. I guess Minho is just a plot device.
The film had its share of action and explosions. It was 141 minutes long and felt every bit of it. The end dragged out for way longer than it needed to be, and then the very end left me shaking my head and asking a ton more questions. I won’t tell you what those were because I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s possible there’s another film and if not, the ending was a WTF? type of ending.
I’m not upset that I watched the movie, but I probably would have survived if I hadn’t seen it. I wasn’t dying to know what happened, and now that I know what happened, I’m bothered by it. Maybe I need to read the books. Maybe they’ll make everything make sense.
Who else has seen these movies? What did you think?
