MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE

By the looks of it, we left them in a world overrun with clichés and nods to other (much better) works of science fiction. There are visual nods to such films as ‘Tron,’ and ‘Logan’s Run’, with a few good doses of almost every other teen post-apocalyptic film that's out there. That is another of the ‘Maze Runner’s' downfalls. The market is oversaturated with these sorts of trilogies at the moment, and while none have been perfect, others have been much much better.

I would now like to take the time to tip my hat at all the monochromatic female villains in almost all of these teen post-apocalyptic franchises. Patricia Clarkson is a veritable force of nature, but even she struggles with the wet fish of a script she has been given. But boy, she looks great in white - just like Julianne Moore’s all grey palate in ‘The Hunger Games’ and Kate Winslet’s all blue in the ‘Divergent’ series. Clearly in the future we need to beware the woman in monochrome.

I rolled my eyes a lot in ‘The Death Cure’ for so many reasons. But I think the biggest one of all was the resolution. So about 10 minutes into the film, they plan an escape to an island with everyone who is immune to the virus, but Thomas being the hero has to go and rescue the last Glader. We then spend the next 2 hours watching him do that, only for the plan in the first ten minutes to be executed at the end. Spoiler alert - he enters and leaves the city with exactly as many Gladers as he started with... So was it worth it in the end?

‘Maze Runner: The Death Cure’ is a long and straight road to a predictable conclusion that will leave no one asking (or wanting to ask) any more questions. Sadly it didn’t even cure my relative boredom, replacing it with further ennui. What a dead end.