The Maze Runner

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Wes Ball/Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Will Poulter, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Kaya Scodelario and Patricia Clarkson

Continuing the teens-in-dystopia story trend, Wes Ball's first feature film The Maze Runner bucks the reverse gender type-casting we've seen in The Hunger Games and Divergent with it's legion of male characters.

Movie audiences are threatened with genre-fatigue and if the thought of sitting through one more film of this stripe induces groaning, one can breath easier knowing The Maze Runner brings something new and thrilling to the table.
Some elements of the genre are familiar; the young individual's struggle against a government or Big Brother-like entity he or she is almost powerless to comprehend or effectively fight; the struggle to prove oneself to peers, and the realization that said individual is exceptional in some way, which is revealed in the course of the story.

But Wes Ball's film, unlike its aforementioned cousins, relies heavily on mystery; much of it cleverly witheld from the audience until late in the story. The who or what behind the mystery is what fuels the narrative engine; keeping us riveted and engaged.

Dylan O'Brien plays Thomas, a young man suddenly deposited into a community of males mostly his age by way of an elevator that rises from below ground to the surface of what is called The Glade. Thomas is unable to offer the boys who pull him from the lift his name, for it is common for new arrivals to not remember their names or identities.

What exactly is The Glade? We (and Thomas) learn it is a lush, sprawling plot of land bounded by towerering walls of impenetrable-looking concrete the inhabitants can neither see over or climb. This strange place serves as a kind of prison whose purpose and design the boys/young men have yet to fathom.

Thomas meets the community leader Gally (Will Poulter); who is efficient, orderly and intolerant of anything or anyone that upsets the order he's helped maintain.

Life in the Glade seems utopian; the community grows its own crops, builds its own shelters and respects Gally's de facto leadership. But no utopia can truly be regarded as such when its inhabitants are denied access to the outer world, which is what motivates Thomas when he sees what appears to be an opening in one section of the massive, concrete wall. Before he can enter, he is stopped and warned about what lies outside the Glade. We learn an intricate maze, whose walls shift nightly, denies the boys escape from whatever and wherever they find themselves. Patrolling the maze are cyborg-like creatures called Grievers; a kind of spider-scorpion hybrid who are fast, nearly indestructible and deadly. As someone ominously states; noone has ever encountered a Griever and lived to tell the tale.

In the community, a group with a specific skill set are Maze-runners, who explore the maze daily in hopes of finding a way out. After Thomas defies the community rule about not venturing out into the maze, he encounters a Griever and barely escapes, though another runner is "stung" and nearly killed. Thomas' action earns him Gally's wrath, thus creating an adversarial relationship between the two young men. Gally sees Thomas' arrival as something inimical to the community while Thomas sees Gally's disdain for everything that disturbs the status quo as dangerous complacency. Thomas' regard for Gally is very reasonable, considering the leader's risk-aversion and his stubborn refusal to organize a more proactive escape.

One day, the community's attention is drawn to the lift and the arrival of another abductee. This time it is a female; one who knows Thomas' name, which perplexes and renders everyone suspicious. Elements from Thomas' past begin to appear in his dreams and memories and the young woman, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) appears in his recollections, though he is as baffled as his Glade-mates as to the significance of her presence.

The film dispenses expository information thriftily, which helps stoke our curiosity. It is also refreshing to see characters employ their reasoning and wits as they close in on the mystery of the maze and who has plotted the Glade inhabitants' abduction. If the film has a socio-political agenda, it may be allegorized in the final shot, which carries a subtle, environmental message.

I can say no more about the plot lest I expose the mystery but I will say Thomas learns he and Teresa were unwitting or not-so-unwitting participants in theirs and the community's abduction.

The performances are sound. I especially liked Will Poulter as Gally; the Glade's source of menace and oppression. Dylan O'Brien also acquits himself well, giving us our first male Katniss Everdeen.

A plot-driven film like The Maze Runner tends not to place a high premium on visuals but the CGI-rendered Maze and Grievers look substantial and convincing.

The reasons behind the maze and the abductions stretch and strain plausibility but it is intriguing and we learn the whole story is but a teaser for the next installment in what will be--gasp!--a franchise. But unlike Divergent, whose future iterations threaten audiences with future drowsiness, The Maze Runner stimulates more curiosity and questions. Whether they can be satisfactorily answered is up to the filmmakers. We care what happens to the characters--an always elusive but crucial consideration when crafting a franchise. If a ludicrous plot fails the audience, a film can still be redeemed with compelling characters who think and feel. And if the creators of the Maze Runner franchise commit this seemingly obvious idea to heart and head, failure will most likely not be an option.