Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials at Gold Class

Honestly I don't know what I am going to write about as I am completely lost watching the movie. I watched the first Maze Runner without knowing the synopsis but the movie was able to carry the plot well and I roughly understood what was going on. That was not the case for the sequel Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.

The Scorch Trials continued from where the first movie ended. The Gladers who just managed to exit the maze was brought to "safety" by a military group. On their journey, they were attacked by zombie-like creatures before being brought to their safe haven. While some cherishes the safety, bed, shower, and food, Thomas felt that they were brought to a prison with the limited freedom they were given. The Gladers learnt that there were many other mazes and those who survived the mazes were gathered at this place. Periodically, a few survivors are called and they are informed that they are transported to a different city where they can finally lead a normal life. Thomas' suspicions remain as all these while, Teresa is always kept separate from the rest.

There is a new guy, Aris, who is introduced as the first guy who arrives in this place until now. Aris shows Thomas the 'secret' on what happens to the people who are being called. They are kept in the room where they are kept barely alive with tubes running through their bodies. Thomas eventually learns that this complex is actually also part of WCKD when he sees the leader of this place communicates with leader of WCKD that Thomas thought had been killed when they escaped the maze. Just because of that, Thomas decides that he has to escape this place, go to the unknown world outside, to find the a group in the mountain which is resisting WCKD. I think that is a very silly thing to do when you have limited knowledge of the world outside and the group that you will be looking for.

Thomas, his roommates, Aris, and Teresa escaped the facility. One of the guys got bitten by the zombie and got infected by the Flare. He then decided to shoot himself rather than turning into zombie as well. With the only hint of a resistance group in the mountains, they cross the desert towards the mountains. When a storm strikes, they run into another facility for shelter and meets Jorge and Brenda. The facility is raided by WCKD but everyone manages to escape and eventually meet the resistance group in the mountain, the Right Arm. During the escape, Brenda was bitten by a zombie and got infected. After meeting the Right Arm, they come across Mary Cooper,an ex-WCKD scientist, who helps to stop Brenda's infection.

If you find everything is confusing from the first movie up to this point, Mary Cooper gives you all the answers. WCKD is looking for the cure against the Flare and the cure cannot be manufactured. The cure can only be harvested from the Immunes. That explains the tubes that drain something from that maze survivors' bodies that Thomas saw before he escaped the WCKD facility earlier in the movie.

The movie reaches the climax when the Right Arm is attacked by WCKD. When Teresa was separated from everyone in the WCKD facility earlier in the movie, something was done to her and she gained her memories. She feels that WCKD has the answer to all these and thus she contacts WCKD on their whereabout. Don't ask me how on earth she contacts the WCKD. The movie ends with WCKD capturing some of the Gladers back while Thomas decides to stay with the remains of the Right Arm to continue their fight in the next movie.

Fiuh... the first movie, which I thought to be so-so, feels so much better after watching this. At least after watching the first movie, I was tempted to read the book. I did not feel that with The Scorch Trials. The plot is very weak and it is just mindless running with everything only revealed in the last part of the movie. The worse part, however, is that it feels that there are no characters in the movie. There is very little character development that they can simply replace the characters and it makes no difference to the plot at all. After all the heroism of Minho and Newt during the escape from the maze, they are reduced to useless and nothing here. So yeah, what kind of movie when there is no plot and no character? Rubbish..

I am still in holiday mood so after knowing that this movie runs for more than 2 hours, I watched this at the Gold Class. Gosh.. What a waste of money.

And joke aside, with the haze back in Singapore, some people made a meme out of this: The Haze Runner. Lol.. A stroke of genius, I would say :)

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