Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Maze Runner

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Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-24-2014, 07:49 AM:

The Maze Runner marks directorial main-stream debut of Wes Ball. It's an adaptation of the 2007 novel carrying the same name by James Dashner. For those who're fond of movies in series, yes... Part II, III and IV have already been written and Part II of the movie has already been commissioned...

This movie caters to the younger crowds, including lots of teenage girls. As a consequence, the crowd was very noisy. Up to the point where I couldn't keep myself back any longer and loudly asked one of my neighbors to either STFU or leave. Fortunately, that managed to bring the unwanted noise down from that corner.

If you've seen the trailers, you already know a great deal of the story. Heavily borrowing from stories like those of The Cube, The Hunger Games and most recently Divergent, this mystery sci-fi is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where a bunch of kids finds themselves captured in the middle of a maze the size of a city, populated with a bunch of flesh eating cybernetic spider-creatures, called Grievers.

While the maze generally is relatively calm over day, every night the maze closes itself off from the center to unleash hell inside it. Nobody has ever survived a night in the maze, up until now...

In the center of the maze, something akin a micro-society has been established in the last three years. A selected few, The Maze Runners, explore the maze each day, to try to unlock its secrets. The relative calm within this micro-society is massively disturbed, once our main protagonist, Thomas, enters the maze via the central, one-way elevator.

After roughly 40 minutes of exposition, the story can finally start to pick up and start to unravel the big questions of Where? How? And why?

It does that in the ordinary mystery fashion of giving you bits of information as clues, building up to the... not so grand reveal. Because, you know, there's this Part II waiting for you next year!

All in all this movie wasn't really a bad experience. It wasn't in 3D for one thing (which I nowadays mostly see as a positive aspect). While most of the movie follows a very cliche ridden and formulaic plot, the slow reveal of information nuggets, pointing you the way to the unwrap keep the story afloat and interesting. I wasn't bored to death, but I also wasn't wowed. Good for popcorn and not very much else.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 09-24-2014, 11:33 AM:

I saw this Lord of the Flies meets Divergent/Hunger Games/The Giver sausage fest. Overall, a pretty disappointing time at the movies. The idea was pretty interesting at first and then after the first 30 minutes the film seemed to go nowhere. But then, the last 5 minutes seemed to redeem the movie with the "to be continued" I just met the evil Kate Winsletvfrom the Divergent movie (who looked like Glen Close) and (who looked like Meryl Street/The Giver)

The special effects were pretty good. I would be interested to know what was green screen and what was an actual set. Sadly, the Starship Troopers creatures were not scary. The sound was pretty good for this movie, for those of you who are more interested in hearing sound from behind you than watching the actual picture in front of you, then this movie is for you. There is a lot of surround sound activity that is actually not distracting. Too bad what was on the screen in front of me was mostly boring.

Overall, a disappointing movie. I am very happy I did not have to pay for this movie. I think if this movie was released in the summer it would of really bombed (Vampire Academy) style.

There also was not all that much actual "Maze Running" which was a bit of a let down considering the title of the movie.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 09-25-2014, 11:36 AM:

Has anyone here seen the movie in the Escape Barco 3 screen system? I hear It was a add on and only has 7 minutes. Only 5 theatres showing It in the 3 projector setup. The next movie will have more side screen information I hope. Semi digital Cinerama is back!

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 09-25-2014, 05:20 PM:

There is an entire topic about this three-screen Barco Escape thing.

Maybe I will see it in action in about a week or two, if I still care about it.

The general consensus seems to be that's nowhere near Cinerama though...

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 09-27-2014, 03:24 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
This movie caters to the younger crowds, including lots of teenage girls. As a consequence, the crowd was very noisy.

NOTHING will make me absolutely stay away from a movie in a theatre as that combination of HUGE negatives. And as much as yapping teenager girls makes a movie nearly intolerable, being annoyed and distracted by nonsense playing on the side walls will probably come in a close second -- just another few things, along with the extra cash they want to extract from you to pay for the annoyances and distractions, the cumulative effect of which just exalts the Home Theatre over the commercial variant by a quantum leap.

Gee, and why stop at the wall projections? What happened to the ceiling....you know, where all that overhead sound will be coming from? Seems what the industries thinks we need isn't an engaging story to "immerse" us, but those silly immersive gimmicks. How about adding those Bump and Grind seats with the motors in them? Oh wait....instead of seats, stick the motors under those sofa lounge beds that AMC is so proud of and thinks people will want to lay in to watch a movie. It just takes a little imagination when you need to distract from the fact that you don't have a good story.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-03-2014, 11:29 AM:

This movie is just like the Hunger Games. Exactly like the Hunger Games. And did I mention that it resembles the Hunger Games?

I am not much of a fan of The Hunger Games (though I do like the crowds it brings in [Smile]

).

...

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 10-03-2014, 04:33 PM:

You sound just like my brother!!

I really like it