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THE MAZE RUNNER

A Movie Review

By Ahmed El-Najjar

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, September 09, 2015


The Maze Runner is a movie that was released September 19, 2014. It was directed by Wes Ball and produced by Ellen Goldsmith-vein, Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen and Lee Stollman.

The Main Cast Members are Dylan O’Brien as Thomas, who is the new guy and last guy to go in the Glade, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Newt, the second in command, Ki Hong Lee as Minho, the keeper of the Runners, and Kaya Scodelario as Teresa, only girl Glader.

The movie starts when we see a boy going up in an elevator to the surface. Then the elevator opens and a Glader pulls him out of the elevator. He starts running away from the crowd and notices that he is in a forest area with giant walls around the area.

Then, the leader of the group tells him what they know about what is going on. The elevator brings a new person once a month but no one knows why they are here or who puts them there. So, Thomas becomes part of the team and he helps the other ones there.

Thomas asks questions about the maze, particularly if anyone has gone through it or if anyone has found a way out of it. Newt tells Thomas that there is no way out and that he will not survive a night in the maze. Inside the maze, there are creatures, called Grievers, who will kill anybody they see there. That is why no one has lasted a night in the maze.

So, Minho the runner and Alby the leader go into the maze to find a way out. While they are doing that, Alby gets stung by a Griever and Thomas runs into the maze to help Minho bring Alby back.

In the maze, they encounter a Griever, who chases them. Then, Thomas gets the idea that the maze walls move constantly. He attracts the Griever’s attention, who chases him, thus the maze walls crush the Griever.

Finally, Thomas leads the group out by using an electronic device found in the Griever’s body. To their surprise, they find out that the whole thing was an experiment to see how creative and persistent they are.

A major area which can be criticized in the movie is related to the main theme, particularly at the end, when they entered the lab.

They find out that all this trouble that they have been going through is because a virus plaguing the earth. They are the few individuals, who are not affected, and the whole planet depends on them to find a solution, which sounds absurd.

Another area is related to how fast the group navigates through the maze at the end, which made the journey unrealistically short.

Despite that, the movie has several areas which can be praised for. It is thought- provoking, it’s suspenseful, and digital effects are great. Like the way they made the Griever so realistic by compounding metal and organic materials to the spider-looking creature.

Also the special effects were great, like the way made the maze move constantly, and the way they created more paths ways.










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