Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

I am desperately trying my best to fight off old age but every time I see one of these Young Adult movies in the theater, I realize that I am getting further and further away from my youth and that all of my dreams are being replaced with thoughts of Torchy’s Tacos and Whataburger! Yes, you read that correctly; instead of dreaming about all of the things I can achieve or see in this world, I now spend the majority of my day hoping that one day I can pull up to a gas station and walk out with a Whataburger with cheese and a Trashy Trailer Park taco.

I say this because there was once a time in my life when I thought it would be cool to run away from an evil organization with my friends while zip lining from building to building. But now I’d rather just watch football at home and hopefully convince my non-existent girlfriend to cook me a grilled cheese sandwich! And can you tell that the depressing tone of this review is fueled by the fact that I’m really hungover and am in dire need of grease to help ease my pain?

Well I promise that I wasn’t drunk or hungover when I saw The Scorch Trials this week. In fact, I went in hoping for good things as I was pleasantly surprised by the first one and some of its cool actions set pieces. And while there is a ton of running and action in this movie, the teenage dialogue and lack of acting chops on screen ultimately leads to its downfall.

In Scorch, the kids have escaped the glade and are now seemingly safe as a group of fighters have picked them up and led them to their secret facility. They feed them, clean them up, and supply them with a nice place to rest before apparently sending them off to a discrete location where Wicked cannot find them. But it doesn’t take long for the kids to realize that things aren’t quite what they seem and they decide to escape to the safety of the new world.

I call it the new world because the world as we know it no longer exists in this story. This world is a barren desert land and is full of collapsed buildings, rogue mercenaries, and creatures who look and act like zombies.

Now being a wannabe scrub screenwriter myself, I am not above borrowing from other films for inspiration. But the writers of this film don’t seem to bring a single original thought to this story at all. It felt like I was watching a cross between I Am Legend and The Hunger Games; and not in a good way. Maybe if they had the kids run into a crazed Will Smith shouting “This is ground zero” over and over again before he attacked them thinking they were the ones who killed his dog Sam, that would’ve been cool. But that didn’t happen, so it wasn’t. Sorry for the random rant but I did warn you that I was hungover.

Anyway, there are a few cool moments in Scorch: Barry Pepper screaming while firing off a .50 caliber was pretty fresh, the lame dance/sex club in the desert was funny, and some of the scenes involving the fast and aggressive zombies actually woke me up from time to time; but overall this film just felt like a sequel to Not Another Teen Movie.

I suggest passing on it and hitting up a Whataburger late night for some tasty taquitos instead. I rate this movie as WEAK!