Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (movie review)
As a movie The Scorch Trials had some very good points, the visuals were spectacular and the actors were fantastic. However as both a movie and a Maze Runner movie I have some serious issues I would like to address!
Firstly to focus on The Scorch Trials strictly from a movie perspective, I feel that the way the Flare was portrayed gives the movie far too much of a "zombie movie" feel and takes away from the more genuine Dystopian feel the series is supposed to have. The first movie (The Maze Runner) was so shockingly unique from everything in film right now, where as the Scorch Trials had an uncanny resemblence to World War Z or the first episode of The Walking Dead which I find took away from the uniqueness and quality of the series as a whole. In the books The Flare is shown as a mental illness, the people were decaying and dying because they were not mentally stable enough to care for themselves. In the movie it's shown as though the people are already dead or have some type of massive mutations that really make them appear more as zombies than anything else (though zombies capable of moving quite quickly). I personally have never been a fan of zombie movies and didn't like that element of the movie.
Secondly, in comparison to the book the movie stripped away many layers of WCKD power and control making it less of a trial and leaving more things up to "chance" which again took away from the unique elements of the series as a whole. The way WICKED in the books were controling everything from behind the scenes and were prepared for anyhting gave the book so much quality and indivuduality, and I believe the movie did its self a disservice by taking that out and simplifying so much of the plot.
I'm probably going to end up seeing this movie again with different people so my opinion of it as a movie might change by watching it knowing what to expect in relation to the book, however at this point I would say for those who are okay with zombie movies and wont be super fussy about details from the book its definitley worth checking out! If you're one of those people though that either don't like zombies or will be upset with major differences to the plot, you may have a problem watching this movie!