You’re trapped. It’s a lush enclosure to be sure, but trapped all the same. 100-foot-high concrete walls surround you. You’re relatively safe, provided you don’t stray at night. Like a zoo. A human boy preserve. Maybe there’s a helpful plaque for visitors.
Most of The Maze Runner takes place in a glade several acres in area but enclosed by massive walls. Every morning, a Kong-size door to the enclosure is opened, allowing the lab rats to explore more walls, the ones outside the square glade enclosure. Well, that’s just cruel, no? “Here, have a cage. Not good enough? Ok, Ok, every day, you can have … a bigger, more confusing cage.”
Gee, movie, why stop there? Why not have some actual cheese in a select corner of the giant labyrinth? And is it too much to ask the glade to have a man-sized hamster wheel and a giant suspended water bottle?
And don’t get caught outside the Kong door at night. Why not? [cue ominous music] Sedan-sized hideous spider-like mechanical living monsters called The Grievers. Coincidentally, that’s my favorite 60s TV show. Ok, I’m 
confused. Really, really confused. Who named them The Grievers? And why? Here’s the thing — nobody has ever seen a Griever and lived to tell the tale, so how does anybody know they even exist enough to call them ‘Grievers?’ See what I’m gettin’ at here? How do they know dudes trapped outside when the gates shut at night don’t die of exposure? And it is all dudes, seriously; most of this movie in one giant sausage fest.
The noob we follow is named Thomas (Dylan O’Brien). Memory is a rare commodity around this place; everybody starts with a blank slate upon arrival. Luckily, Thomas remembers his name while being hazed by the kid who takes a spider-bite to the gonads in We’re the Millers (Will Poulter). Fittingly, and despite the noobness, Thomas seems to be the one around with balls; he actually wants to leave the glade and the giant maze. How does one do this? It starts by being a Maze Runner, of course. What? Well, only certain kids are allowed to leave the glade to find the scrumptious hidden prize or at least ask, “Who moved my cheese?”
I imagine if you didn’t read ths James Dashner novel, The Maze Runner will be a tad confusing, playing like either a poor man’s Hunger Games or a modern Lord of the Flies. Just hang on to the idea of trapped people wanting something new. Can’t be anywhere as confusing as “Lost,” can it?
Tribal boy not much in the know-y
Negotiating a labyrinth to and fro-ey
Beware at night
Intensified fright
And look out for David Bowie
Rated PG-13, 113 Minutes
D: Wes Ball
W: Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin
Genre: Our awful, awful dystopian future
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of dystopia
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Women
