review.
If ever a movie desperately demanded a “Previously on …” opening, it’s Maze Runner: The Death Cure.
The action-adventure franchise based on James Dashner’s post-apocalyptic young-adult novels enjoyed a nice groove with the first two movies. Then an accident happened with main Maze star Dylan O’Brien on the Death Cure set, causing a delay of nearly a year and slowing that momentum.
Thankfully, O’Brien is back as chosen one Thomas, throwing himself into derring-do yet also dealing with moral quandaries in Death Cure ( eegE; rated PG-13; in theaters Friday). But while the third chapter is entertaining — and quite explosive — it has definitely lost some steam.
This one’s an overlong affair that other books-to-movies franchises probably would have tried to stretch into two projects. There’s just not enough to warrant a fourth film, and too much to wrap in two-and-a-half hours.
After escaping a dangerous maze in the first film, Thomas (O’Brien), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and friends navigated the desolate hellscape of what’s left of America in sequel The Scorch Trials, the result of the Flare virus that zombified most of the population. Safely holed up behind gigantic walls in Utopian metropolis Last City, the organization WCKD is working on the cure, though in a most villainous way: engaging in horrifying tests on teenagers who are immune to the disease and playing God in determining who’s worth sacrificing for the greater good.
The bright lights and high-class civilization of Last City contrasted with the rising furor of the unwashed masses outside gives Death Cure a whiff of culture-war relevance for anybody paying attention to the news lately. Thomas needs to break his old pal Minho (Ki Hong Lee) out of WCKD’s clutches, and in doing so comes face to face with love interest Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), who seemingly betrayed Thomas and her friends at the end of Scorch Trials.
Director Wes Ball opens the film with a speeding-train heist and later unleashes falling buildings, riotous chaos and more action-film extravaganza than in the previous Maze Runner films. Yet the tighter storytelling of those chapters comes undone in Death Cure with its glut of characters and various plot threads.
The young cast members lend a rugged vibrancy to the familiar zombie violence and “down with The Man!” revolution, and the old folks aren’t too shabby either. Giancarlo Esposito’s resistance leader Jorge and Patricia Clarkson’s complicated WCKD guru Ava unfortunately don’t get enough to do. But Aidan Gillen oozes punchable antagonism as Janson, and Walton Goggins shows up as a noseless, scarred underworld figure so freakily magnetic that you want to spend the rest of the movie hanging with him.
While the final Maze Runner is a rough go at times, it sticks the landing, with a forgivable bit of wobble.