The first half of “Maze Runner: The Death Cure” largely involves Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his team, trying to rescue their fellow Glader, Minho (Ki Hong-Lee) from WCKD, the totalitarian organization that placed Thomas and a few hundred teenagers in a series of tests intended to find the cure for ‘The Flare’, a global pandemic that swept almost all of humanity.
Hellbent to come up with the ultimate solution, every potential subject is now like a priceless resource to WCKD. They now have twenty-nine immunes, including Minho, who all wear a shirt that declares each of them as a ‘property of WCKD’. Picking up from where the story left off in ‘The Scorch Trials’, the final bow to James Dashner’s dystopian saga, opens in an explosive chase sequence that ends in a panoramic scene which features a train car getting lifted up in the air.
The pause from the action does not stretch long enough from here as Thomas’ team immediately embarks in a much deadlier campaign to infiltrate the enemies headquarters, an inevitable choice that entails Thomas enlisting the aid of an old aquaintance they’ve all thought to be dead.
Surprisingly, the choice to confine the first half of the film within the team’s attempts to save Minho from WCKD’s torture labs–practically giant blood-harvesting machines–would have been enough to sustain interest, only if if doesn’t proceed to an overly stretched second half whose final minutes are primarily devoted for emotional narrations and inspirational speeches (one of which, includes a heartbreaking parting letter from Thomas Bradie-Sangster’s Newt).
It is interesting to note though, that this last installment does not spend too much time to recount the happenings in what comes before, but instead devotes itself to more sense-juddering action sequences, a lot of which uses fire–lots and lots of fire–thereby setting the adrenaline for this mildly-successful YA franchise’s closing feature, ablaze.
Some of the most noteworthy moments include Rosa Salazar’s impressive stuntworks, which, perhaps, are a sneak-peak to her upcoming solo feature, ‘Alita: Battle Angel’. Kaya Scodelario, who occasionally looks and sounds like Emma Stone, delivers a pretty decent job pulling off Teresa, who was revealed in ‘The Scorch Trials’ to have sided with WCKD.
Hers and Ava Paige’s presence in the largely-conceived authoritarian government, makes the organization’s motives confused, but with Rat-Man (Aidan Gillen), whose intent to cure only those he pleases, WCKD could be nothing else except pure evil.
Wes Ball’s effort to achieve a sound resolution by populating the narrative with tension and movements create a sense of range, encompassing enough to deliver some momentum to push climactic moments to riveting levels.
That seems enough to keep the narrative from expanding to a bloat, and while the sheer length of time spent to find this dystopian epic, some appropriate closure does not feel ‘appropriate’, at all, it does deliver a decent job at coming up a sentimental send-off.
RATING: 3/5
‘Maze Runner: The Death Cure’ opens January 24, Wednesday, 2018 nationwide.
5 – Excellent
4 – Very Good
3 – Good
2 – Tolerable
1 – Terrible
