THE MAZE RUNNER

20th Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 113 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of The Maze Runner.

In Twentieth Century Fox's The Maze Runner, amnesiac Dylan O'Brien finds himself transported into a mysterious Glade with a group of boys - which is surrounded by a giant maze.

In a cross between The Hunger Games and The Lord of the Flies, the apocalyptic movie The Maze Runner is based on the book The Maze Runner by James Dashner (who had a cameo in the film). Told from the point of view of O'Brien, we follow the amnesiac O'Brien as he tries to figure out what is going on, who put them there, and how to escape The Glade that the boy Gladers have struggled to make into a low technology camp by running the dangerous maze.

What I liked about the movie is that the audience learned what was going on in the movie at the same time that O'Brien learned what was going on. You did not have to read the book to know what was going on. In fact I had never even heard of the young adult book series The Maze Runner until the movie came out. As a result, the movie The Maze Runner is the first of the movie series that will be made out of The Maze Runner books. While not mentioned in the movie, I also liked the fact that the characters names were named after historical figures and scientists as those are some of the themes of the movie.

While the cast was made up of a group of talented young British stars, similar in age to The Hunger Games, such as Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, and Kaya Scodelario, the only actor that I had actually heard of was Will Poulter, as O'Brien's rival who got upset that everything has changed ever since O'Brien arrived in The Glade. It was bad enough that O'Brien is not following the rules, but that the Gladers are dying as a result of O'Brien not following the rules.

While the movie is good on the action and suspense, and the acting by the stars - the movie did make me cry - there were a couple of things that did not make sense, like the fact that it takes incredible resources and technology to even build the huge miles long maze.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 113 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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