I have officially ventured into new territory with
Maze Runner: The
Scorch Trials. This is the first movie I have actually seen in Seattle,
as well as my first review of a movie that is neither a remake nor a
reboot (
Fury Road,
Jurassic World, and
Terminator I saw while I was
still living in California), and already it feels slightly foreign. With
Fury Road,
Jurassic World, and
Terminator, I had a point of comparison,
or a foundation to build off of, in the earlier installments of those
series. With
Scorch Trials, I have a new and very active series that
only has one previous installment, so that leaves me with very little
ground with which to juxtapose it, other than of course its attempt at
being a well-rounded science fiction film. It also feels foreign in the
fact that I have learned the hard way that there is actually somewhere
else in the world that has more expensive movie theaters than
California.
For those that know me, going
to see the
Maze Runner films may seem slightly out of character; it is a
series targeted towards an adolescent demographic (a la
Hunger Games),
which I have historically found laughable (the
Harry Potter series was
the big movie series of my adolescent years, and while I will admit to
enjoying the books as a child, in my adolescent years, I was busy
watching
Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
The Legend of Drunken Master, and
Event Horizon while my peers were watching the
Harry Potter films).
Accordingly, it might be useful to note that my interest in the
Maze
Runner series more or less came about by sheer accident; there is a
cheap, $2 movie theater near where I used to live in Southern California
that screens movies right after their normal screening release in other
theaters, for those that either missed the normal screening or for
those that didn't feel like paying the $11 to go see a movie in
California (apparently it's $13 in Seattle). This theater was one of my
go-to movie theaters at the time, since this was back when I was still a
barista and $11 was very precious (that's almost two burritos in San
Diego, a city in a state where gas prices have hovered between $3.50 and
$4.75 for the past three years). Earlier this year, sometime in
February or March, I had a nice, long three day weekend, and all of my
friends were either out of town or preoccupied with other matters, not
to mention the fact that it had been a while since I had been to a
movie. I looked at what was playing at the $2 theater at the time and
found this movie called
The Maze Runner, which I had never even heard of
before. It's synopsis was the most interesting when compared to all of
the other movies being screened at the time, so I said "what the hell"
and spent an afternoon at the movies. Then it was about halfway through
the movie that I realized who the target demographic was. Despite this, I
actually found the first
Maze Runner rather enjoyable, enough so that
it piqued my interest in the film series so that I felt inclined to go
see this second installment.
The
Maze Runner films are based on a young-adult sci-fi book series by
James Dashner. Admittedly, I had never even heard of the book series
before going to see the first movie (likely because I'm a little out of
the age group for it; this is a very recent series). It was the synopsis
of the first movie I read online that got me going to see the first
one. In
The Maze Runner, a group of adolescent males (interestingly
later joined by one female) are mysteriously trapped in a small, lush
oasis known as "The Glade", which is surrounded on all sides by a
towering, complex monolith of a maze, with no memory or recollection of
who they are or how they got there. Occasionally, some of the walls in
the maze open up, allowing the boys to explore the inner corridors of
the maze, perhaps finding new supplies or a way out. This is notably a
dangerous endeavor, however, as the maze is crawling with giant,
murderous, cybernetic insects known as "Grievers". The film starts with
protagonist Thomas joining our group of scouts in The Glade, of course
with no memory of who he is. However, apparently Thomas is the only one
in the world with the cunning and leadership skills necessary to help
the group escape from The Glade, as he eventually motivates the group
(including the eventual female member, Theresa) to venture out into the
maze and unravel the mystery of who they are and what they are doing
there. It turns out, somewhat unsurprisingly, that the world outside the
maze has been devastated by a deadly virus, known as "The Flare", that has
driven the world's population mad and towards the brink of extinction,
with only a handful of survivors and Earth's landscape left in a
desolate, chaotic state known as "The Scorch" (take a wild guess as to
where
The Scorch Trials takes place). Thomas and his fellow Gladers are
actually a new generation of youth that are apparently immune to The
Flare, so they were captured by a mysterious, antagonistic organization
called W.C.K.D., had their memories erased, and thrown into The Glade to
study the inner psychological and neurological workings of their brains
in order to try and find a cure for The Flare.
The Maze Runner ends
with Thomas and crew escaping the maze, the higher-ups at W.C.K.D. being
killed off by a different, unnamed organization, and our heroes
evacuating with said group into the desolation that is The Scorch.
Maze
Runner: The Scorch Trials picks up literally right where The Maze Runner
left off, with Thomas waking up in the same helicopter he passed out in
at the end of the first film.
There are a few things that should perhaps be said about the first film
before diving into
The Scorch Trials. While it didn't do anything
groundbreaking,
The Maze Runner was a nice reprieve from the non-stop
action, reboot mess that is the current state of science fiction and
fantasy films in Hollywood. One simply has to look at
Age of Ultron to
see that sci-fi films have become like drug addicts; if CGI were a
narcotic, and intellectual properties were users, then we would find
many of today's sci-fi IPs sprawled out on a dirty mattress in a boarded
up house with used needles strewn about the floor.
The Maze Runner, in
contrast, paces itself, and, instead of taking the Michael Bay approach
to science fiction (explosions left and right), it seems as if it is
trying to do justice to its literary origins (I say "seem" mostly
because I haven't actually read the books).
There is something very
Lord
of the Flies about
The Maze Runner; as the film progresses, one can
document various points where there are almost inevitable power
struggles between the boys, particularly after the arrival of Thomas in
The Glade. Factions slowly develop, with some taking the side of Thomas
in that they think they should try to escape the maze, and others taking
the side of Gally, another one of the boys in The Glade, one of the
secondary antagonists in the film, who thinks that they should stay. On
that note, there is an important question that
The Maze Runner asks that
a lot of the events and relationships in the film center around: is it
better to stay in The Glade, where they know they're safe, but perhaps
imprisoned, or try and leave The Glade, where things may be dangerous
and uncertain, but also liberating? The spirit behind this question
perhaps motivates the phrase "ignorance is bliss"; Gally certainly would
rather live in ignorance and security, while Thomas desires to uncover
the Truth, with whatever hazards that may bring. Asking this question
ultimately earns the film my favor; while this question is not anything
new or unheard of, it's one that hasn't been asked in a long time, and
the fact that
The Maze Runner even asks question at all is already more a
claim to success than
Terminator Genisys ever had. There were a couple
interesting points in
The Maze Runner that could have developed into
interesting questions, but didn't, for a handful of reasons (i.e. when
Theresa, a young, attractive female is suddenly dropped into a camp of
adolescent males - a lot of things could have developed here, but those
questions might have been too mature for an audience of American
adolescents, and likely would have gone way over their heads). Despite
this, the first
Maze Runner film earned my favor, enough that, when I
heard that a second one was being release this past weekend, I thought
it would make a good topic for my next review.
And thus we have arrived at
The Scorch Trials. Those who are skilled in identifying the subtle
nuances between different science fiction sub-genres will notice a
pretty distinct shift of tone between
The Scorch Trials and the first
film. Where
The Maze Runner had a distinct dystopian feel to it,
examining a group of adolescent males trying to create a functioning
society complete with social strata (again, like
Lord of the Flies)
while a larger faceless entity watched from a kind of "God perspective"
above (think
1984),
The Scorch Trials seems to abandon that framework,
preferring to instead take the approach of something much more dire and
apocalyptic, with vast forsaken wastelands (think Cormac McCarthy's
The
Road or the
Fallout series of games), sprinkled here and there with the
ruins of dilapidated cities and the small settlements of those who have
managed to dodge both the spread of the Flare and the capture of W.C.K.D
(a la
The Book of Eli), as well as the crazed demi-zombies of those who
have been infected with The Flare and now terrorize The Scorch (a la
I
am Legend).
The Scorch Trials literally picks up right where
The Maze
Runner left off, so much so that one could probably cut out the credits
of the first film and tape the two reels together with a piece of scotch
tape and someone who didn't know better might actually think it was all
one long film. Thomas wakes up in the helicopter that rescued our group
of protagonists at the end of the first film, which takes them to a
new, high security facility in The Scorch, where they encounter the
survivors of other mazes. Having supposedly escaped the trap of
W.C.K.D., the new facility, which promises to keep them secure and
eventually take them to a new kind of "paradise", however, seems too
good to be true, and Thomas immediately becomes suspicious when Aris, an
interesting, slightly creepy boy from a maze full of women (much like
Theresa was for Thomas' group) helps him sneak around the complex one
night soon after they arrive (one well versed in Greek myth might think
of the Amazons when learning about Aris' maze, but instead of Aris
filling the role of Hercules completing one of his Labors, perhaps it
would be more accurate to portray him as Paris earning the affection of
Greek and Trojan women alike). As Fate would have it (and not
surprisingly), it turns out this new facility is actually W.C.K.D. in
disguise, and the man that runs the place, Janson, is actually under the
direct command of Ava Paige, one of the higher ups at W.C.K.D. that was
supposedly killed off at the end of the first film. Thomas and Aris
quickly learn that this "paradise" that Janson is taking the maze
survivors to is actually some kind of chemically induced coma, allowing
W.C.K.D.'s scientists to harvest the relevant enzymes from their brains
which may allow them to produce a cure for The Flare. It doesn't take
long for our group of protagonists to orchestrate their escape, dodging
W.C.K.D. security forces and bolting out the front gate into the chaos
of The Scorch, where they encounter smugglers, rebel groups, old
technology, and, of course, the crazies infected by The Flare.
Like its predecessor,
The
Scorch Trials asks some very important questions. I found that the
events of the film center around two questions in particular: 1) "Does
the end ever justify the means?" and, in keeping in the spirit of the
first film, 2) "Can ignorance really be bliss?" It's unfortunate that,
also like its predecessor,
The Scorch Trials merely presents the
questions without ever really offering to answer them, and, on the few
occasions that it does hint at an answer, it is usually the cliched view
of the protagonists that we are just expected to accept at face value.
(1) highlights the dilemma that W.C.K.D. presents for Thomas and crew. I
think the spirit of the question is best equated to the utilitarian
dilemma of the person that can save the crew of only one of two sinking
ships; on the first ship is only a small handful of individuals composed
of the person's friends, while on the second ship is a much larger
group of complete strangers. More accurately, the aim of the question
can also be captured by pointing to the dilemma of a scientist that has
the opportunity to discover the cure for cancer, but in the process has
to test the cure on live human subjects with potentially adverse and
painful effects that may kill them. And such is the case with W.C.K.D.;
it is the aim of Paige and W.C.K.D. that they uncover the cure for The
Flare, and they seem to be on the right track. The unfortunate thing for
our protagonists, however, is that "being on the right track" involves
subjecting those that are immune to the disease to the deadly trials of
the mazes, in order to cultivate the appropriate proteins and enzymes in
their brains so that they can be harvested later. Accordingly, insofar
as W.C.K.D.'s situation parallels the generic utilitarian dilemma above,
one could try to evaluate W.C.K.D.'s position using the standard
approaches given to the above dilemma. The common resolution, and the
one that self-assumed righteous individuals are quick to take up, is
that the larger crew of the second sinking ship (the complete strangers)
should be the one that should be saved "for the greater good". On this
view, the end of "saving a larger group of people" justifies the means
of "sacrificing one's friends". Applying this approach to W.C.K.D.'s
situation, then it would seem that W.C.K.D. is actually justified in its
approach; the end of "finding a cure for The Flare" justifies the means
of "sacrificing the maze survivors". If this is the most common
approach (and seemingly the most intuitive), one is then left to wonder
why W.C.K.D. are just unconditionally presented as the bad guys in the
film? Alas, it is here that I think
The Scorch Trials misses a great
opportunity; instead of really entertaining the idea that "maybe
W.C.K.D. has a point", the film doesn't engage the idea, nor even appear
to consider it. Imagine how different, and perhaps more interesting,
the movie would be if W.C.K.D. were actually presented as the
protagonists of the film, and Thomas and crew, the antagonists. Or, on the other hand, if
one would move to reject the common utilitarian resolution to the
dilemma, and argue that one is perfectly justified in letting the larger
group of survivors drown in favor of saving one's friends, which is
fine, then at least engage the idea and explain why it is a bad idea,
and why any alternative would be a better option, neither of which
Thomas, or anybody else for that matter, seems to do. A lot of the other
characters just blindly follow Thomas, no questions asked, and I imagine
that many movie-goers just take it for granted that Thomas is a smart,
confident, young kid, when, with a little bit of reflection and
contemplation, one could potentially make the case that Thomas is a
complete moron.
Before addressing question (2), there is one last thing that can be said
about (1) and the situations described in the above paragraph. Towards
the end of
The Scorch Trials, Theresa, the single female in Thomas'
merry band of protagonists, actually sells out the location of the group
to W.C.K.D., telling Thomas that it's better that W.C.K.D. find a cure,
resulting in a violent, fiery raid by W.C.K.D. forces on a resistance
group. One might look at this scene as a kind of counter-example to my
above point that the film doesn't actually consider any alternative to
Thomas' view. However, this conclusion would be too hastily drawn, and,
again after a little bit of reflection, one would realize that Theresa
doesn't really do that by the end of the movie. Theresa simply converts
herself from protagonist to antagonist, and the effect that such a scene
has the audience is that they simply start hating Theresa and
sympathize even more with Thomas. In other words, in order for
The
Scorch Trials to really provide a counter-example to my above claims, we
would need to see a real conflict of ideas, where the pros and cons of
each are given equal consideration. As I think the above thought
experiments illustrate, the morality surrounding the proposed solutions
to these dilemmas is not clear-cut black and white. However,
The Scorch
Trials presents us with the red herring that the solutions to these
dilemmas are supposed to be clear-cut. Instead of Theresa representing
an alternative point of view that engages Thomas in discussion (either figuratively or literally), she
simply converts herself into yet another hurdle for Thomas and crew to
overcome. In short, she is not an adequate representation of an
alternative point of view, but rather more of an emotion-jerker for the
audience.
(2) is actually a question
that gets recycled from the first film. I mentioned that Gally was an
antagonistic force for Thomas in
The Maze Runner, preferring to stay in
the safety and security in The Glade than venture out into the unknown
of the maze and The Scorch. But much like (1), the audience is lead to
think that those that actually entertain this point are crazy, as
opposed to considering the prospect that, perhaps, it would be better to
live in the sheltered, secluded oases that are The Glade or W.C.K.D.'s
facility as opposed to endure the harshness of The Scorch. This conflict
of ideas is readily apparent if one were to question what exactly it
was that Thomas and crew actually achieved by escaping The Glade at the
end of the first film, or by eluding capture by W.C.K.D. in
The Scorch
Trials. In fact, one might even wonder exactly what it is that Thomas is
even hoping to achieve. W.C.K.D., for all intents and purposes, wants
to find a cure for a disease that threatens to wipe out the human race,
while it's not entirely clear what Thomas is doing. (One might argue
that Thomas is simply concerned with his own self-preservation, and that
self-preservation, in and of itself, is a sufficient impetus for
action, a view I would be happy to endorse if I thought that it were
applicable in this case. Thomas is presented as the apotheosis of
righteousness in the films - selfless, compassionate, and brave. Thomas'
character seems wholly at odds with one who is motivated by his or her
own self-interest or self-perservation, thus it would seem slightly
misplaced to try and argue that Thomas' motivation in the films is
simply his own self-preservation where his character is meant to be
otherwise). In this case, Gally's perspective at the end of the first
film might have some merit to it; The Glade, while isolated from
whatever possibilities and blessings that the rest of the world may
present, is also safe from the world's horrors. Thomas, on the other
hand, offers nothing but uncertainty and action without forethought.
Don't get me wrong; I vehemently reject the idea that "ignorance is
bliss", and much more favor the notion that, to truly find Paradise, one
has to endure trials and uncertainty and ultimately find Truth, however
pleasant or miserable it may be. The difference is that Thomas never
actually makes this argument; it's just assumed from the outset of both
films that Gally and Paige are wrong, which would be fine for the movie
to portray if it actually made the case for Thomas' view,
which it didn't. Both films seem to have Thomas and crew simply running
in random directions, sometimes with particular destinations in mind,
but without any kind of larger goal or aim.
The tension between these two
ideas surrounding (2) can be brought out even more if we put it in the
context of Philosophy's famous "Sense Machine" thought experiment. This
idea was alluded to very, very briefly towards the beginning of
The
Scorch Trials when Thomas and Aris found that the "paradise" that Jansen
was leading the maze survivors to was actually a chemically induced
coma. In general philosophical discussion, the "Sense Machine" scenario
can be paraphrased as something like the following: suppose that, one
day when you wake up, you are greeted by a scientist that offers you the
opportunity to experience any sensation you so desire. This sensation
can be anything, from feeling a cool summer breeze brush against your
skin, to a visually stunning theater performance on Broadway, to having
the greatest orgasm ever in a medieval harem. And every detail will be
present; this sensation will feel exactly like the real thing in every
way, so much so that one wouldn't be able to tell the difference between
this sensation and any other experience of the exact same thing. And,
even better, this scientist will be able to perpetually replicate this
sensation, or other sensations of equal pleasure, and offers you the
opportunity to experience them constantly, thus allowing one to forever
revel in ecstasy and bliss. However, there is a catch: these sensations
aren't technically real. In fact, in order to constantly experience
them, one would have to be perpetually fixed to some kind of virtual
reality machine, which feeds his or her brain the appropriate neural
stimuli as to replicate the sensation in every detail. Not the "real
thing"
per se, but, from the perspective of sensation, one would not be
able to tell the difference. The question that is then posed to
participants in this thought experiment is a simple one: Would you do
it? Would you enter the Sense Machine? Gally would, judging by his
perspective in the first film, and both Paige and Theresa don't seem to
think that it's such a bad thing to harvest the proteins from a maze
survivor as long as he or she is being properly stimulated in his or her
coma. The argument can then be made that it is a win/win situation for
Paige and the maze survivors; Paige gets the cure for The Flare while
the survivors are comatose, but the survivors don't even realize it
because their brains are being given pleasant sensations.
But, alas, like the alternative solutions to (1), this idea is never
really entertained in
The Scorch Trials. We are supposed to assume that
morality in
The Scorch Trials is as clear cut is as Thomas makes it out
to be, nor is there ever any W.C.K.D. sympathizer present to make their
case. If Jansen or Paige ever really stopped and asked Thomas why a life
out in The Scorch is in any way better than a life in an artificial
paradise, then the film would be getting at something fundamentally
important. However, the film merely hints at the question, and doesn't
really actually engage it. What would have been even more provocative
would have been to have the case made in favor of W.C.K.D.'s artificial
paradise, while Thomas' perspective is left unsupported. A moral 360
such as this would undoubtedly turn several heads, and, within the
context of the larger "Sense Machine" thought experiment, it might have
really motivated people to stop and actually try to explain why being
hooked up to the Sense Machine is truly a bad thing, a feat that many
will find, I think, painfully daunting. I am more than willing to support one who at least makes an attempt to explain why the Sense
Machine is a bad thing, but, at least when it comes to the
Maze Runner
series, such a dissenter is absent.
It may seem as if I am being slightly more critical of
The Scorch Trials
than I am lauding it. However, despite this, I cannot end this review
without giving
The Scorch Trials a recommendation. The previous
paragraphs highlight the ways in which
The Scorch Trials can be
improved, but it would do the film a disservice to not underline the
things that it does well. As mentioned,
The Scorch Trials asks some
very important questions, and although these questions are predictable,
almost to the point of being cliche, the fact that it asks questions at
all already sets it a cut above other recent science fiction films.
Couple this with the fact that, also unlike many recent science fiction
films,
The Scorch Trials isn't so reliant on CGI to achieve its effects,
nor is it the most action-heavy sci-fi film of the summer, then you
have something that serves as a nice reprieve from a lot of other sci-fi
films of the year, even if it just mediocre at doing so. The end of
The
Scorch Trials, right after W.C.K.D. raids the resistance group and
recaptures a large portion of the maze survivors, including one of
Thomas' merry band, hints heavily at a third film where our protagonists
turn the tables and, instead of running from W.C.K.D., they attack
W.C.K.D. head-on. Assuming that this third installment of the
Maze
Runner series is released at all, and that I am still doing movie
reviews at that time, I can already forecast a point that I will hold it
responsible for: we will yet again see the very same conflict of ideas
described above, whether the characters in the film realize it or not. But, unlike these first two films where the conflict was most evident in
relationships among the characters, this future third
Maze Runner film
will illustrate the conflict by means of violence and armed struggle. And,
quite honestly, this is where the series has an opportunity to shine; a
person's values can be made most evident in violent struggle, and, if
the series really wants to illustrate the above conflict of ideas in the
way that I suggested, where it actually makes the case for at least one
of them, then the best time to do it would be against a backdrop of
armed conflict, where each combatant expresses his or her understanding of what he or she is doing and why. Whether or not it actually will do this, well, we will
just have to wait and see.
