Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Review

Preface

  • Man, it was hard but ladies and gentlemen we have finally found a movie in 2015 that is worse than Pixels!

Review/Rant

  • Alright guys, so Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is the sequel to The Maze Runner, a movie I didn’t see.
  • So why did I see Scorch Trials, you may be asking yourself?
  • Well I was going to see The Intern or Everest, but my friends and I changed our minds last minute cuz we all had heard that The Maze Runner was set up to a really cool noir second installment.
  • Whoever we heard that from was a complete liar and should never be trusted to speak any words ever again.
  • Guys… It’s bad.
  • I don’t really know where to start on this one, so I guess we’ll start with the pacing. Cuz that’s the most noticeable thing about the movie.
  • The Pacing of this movie is so off.
  • I CHALLENGE you, any of you, to find a scene in this movie that lasts longer than 90 seconds.
    • And I say 90 seconds, not 1 minute, because there was one scene in the movie that was about 1 minute 15 seconds, but there was nothing more than a minute and a half. Trust me.
  • This took away time from the characters, who we’re supposed to root for, but you end up not caring about whatsoever because every 50 seconds the shot switches to a different character.
  • The whole movie felt like a freaking montage!
  • And in the movie that felt like a montage, this montage montaged on way too long.
  • We get to a point where you think the movie is going to end, and it doesn’t. Then another point where the movie can end on a cool cliffhanger. And it doesn’t. Then… Really, a third time? Yup. It doesn’t. The FOURTH TIME you think the movie’s going to end, it finally does.
  • I swear to God, Alfred Hitchcock would be shaking his head right now for these poor scene constructs and awful endings…
  • Not just that either, the movie isn’t edited.
  • Yeah, I ragged on Unbroken earlier this year because I thought it looked like Angelina Jolie handed it off to a 12 year old to edit it on iMovie.
  • This movie wasn’t even edited.
  • It’s like the director, or the monkey, or whoever threw this thing together literally just:
  1. pulled out a camera
  2. hit record a bunch of times
  3. threw the “scenes” in one after the other
  • There were no scene transitions, it didn’t feel structured, it felt like there was no effort on the part of the director.
  • And you guys know that effort is all I really care about!
  • And because of how badly shot this thing is, you gotta assume the script is awful too.
  • I know this is based off a YA novel, and I’m guessing the novel isn’t terrible, but this movie is written so poorly.
  • This thing is all over the place.
    • I say that a lot with bad movies, but TRUST ME. This one really is.
  • At first it’s just this generic “what’s going on in the world?” movie. But then it turns into a zombie movie, and then it turns into a Public Service Announcement (more on that in a second…), then we get to the part where it’s just way too long and tries to be an old-timey Western meets Terminator.
  • My SECOND Challenge to you all is to see if, after this movie, you can describe the plot of it in two sentences or less.
    • I would forfeit that challenge. And so will you.
  • My THIRD Challenge is actually the toughest one, because it has to do with the dialogue.
  • Count how many friggin’ times that any character in this movie says, “let’s go.”
    • Not even, “we gotta go!” or “go, go, go!”
    • Nope.
    • Just “let’s go.”
    • I promise, you will hear it a minimum of 742 times.
    • I do seriously promise you that will be the highlight of either the Honest Trailer or Everything Wrong With for this movie. Guaranteed.
    • I really thought that “Let’s Go” would be the closing theme to the movie. I really thought that!
  • The dialogue in this movie is so laughably bad, that my friend and I now want to rent the first Maze Runner and just watch it for laughs.
  • Which, honestly, you can totally do for the second half of this movie. It’s just that awful.
    • The first half is rough though.
  • The first half is the villain (aka generic Liam Neeson rip-off phoning it in) just saying these completely cliché lines.
    • “I’m giving the orders here!” Or something like that…
  • But that second half man…
  • Gus from Breaking Bad shows up. He grabs onto a zip-line, while they are in a life-or-death scenario, and he whimsically says, “follow meeeeeee!”
  • This really happened.
  • Okay, now I’m going to get into some spoilers about scenes towards the end of the movie, but if you’re reading this, you know you won’t watch this movie, so stick around and hear about the most hilarious parts!

 

  • So… when the plot really goes off the rails and just becomes way too predictable is when they try to turn it into a horror movie.
  • I turn to one of my friends during this real quiet moment and I ACTUALLY said, “jump scare!”
  • Not one second later does one of those zombie things jump on screen.
  • Then, they’re leaving the zombie attack site and everyone seems fine.
  • I turn to that same friend and say, “what do you want to bet one of them got bit?”
    • Five minutes later: “Oh my God, he’s bit!”
  • Then, my favorite sequence that should never have been in the movie but made me almost cry laughing was the complete PSA.
  • So they get to this crack-house or something at a point in their journey-to-find-a-plot.
  • And older, grosser-looking Neville Longbottom says, “this is your admission ticket!” or something, and hands the two characters green liquids.
  • Then they’re in the crack-house and the characters say more than once, “oh man… This was a bad idea!”
  • Like, it’s important to get the “don’t do drugs” message across to American youth, but WHAT WAS THIS!?
  • My other ‘favorite’ part is when they got to the desert and they were about to meet up with these possible allies.
  • I knew it wouldn’t happen, but I so badly wanted Shailene Woodley or Theo James to walk out and be like, “welcome to Divergent!!”
  • That would have been marvelous.
  • But honestly, when a YA novel adaptation is such a completely laughable disaster that it actually makes Divergent look good and Insurgent look GREAT by comparison, that is when your YA novel adaptation has failed my friend.
  • You don’t care about the characters at all in this movie whatsoever, at least in Divergent you care a little bit.
  • People might say, “John, you need to see the first one!”
  • But I doubt it.
    • You don’t need to see Star Wars to know who Luke or Leia or really anyone is in Empire Strikes Back.
    • Even Catching Fire re-established its characters at the beginning and didn’t assume the audience knew who they were.
  • Scorch Trials just assumed you knew who each character was, you didn’t care about a single one of these kids, none of them were good actors (sorry Dylan O’Brian, find a better script and director), and it felt like they just were trying to use too many characters for one movies benefit.
  • And yeah, I don’t need to read the book either. But I’ve gone into that argument way too many times with you all…

In Conclusion

  • In Conclusion Guys, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is a complete trainwreck disaster and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is… UNWATCHABLE.
  • And that’s all I want to say about it!
  • For now that is… I’m sure I’ll be brining it up again at the end of this December…

***

So guys, those are my thoughts/my rant on Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials! What are your thoughts on this trainwreck? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.

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One thought on “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Review

  1. You’re a fucking dumbass if you truly believe it’s the worst movie of the year. Get your over critical ass out of here, kid.

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