Maze Runner - The Scorch Trials

The theme circulating among most teen-angst centric fiction over the last decade has mostly been grounded in a post-apocalyptic metaphors with a young, wildly rebellious female in the lead. More than often this "virgin sacrifice" finds herself in a situation inciting social change over a tyrannically subversive superpower and along the way finds her inner strength, a true calling and a prince charming that she rescues from a fall or two -- she also proves she's a formidable menace with a bow or semi-automatic weapons.

When "The Maze Runner," a book series initiated by author James Dashner, first appeared on the fiction story radar, it was overshadowed by the romantically torn "Twilight" Saga and then "The Hunger Games" swooped in to fill the vacuum left by that book series' success, and yet a film franchise was similarly launched igniting a ticket buyers calamity. What made "The Maze Runner" an instant stand-out was not only that the main player was a male adolescent, but also that for most of the movie it's all about the boys trying to figure it out.

It took them a whole movie to drive the point!

Slightly more stylized, but feeling like a contemporary version of the classic "Lord of the Flies," when our hero Thomas (played by Dylan O'Brien) enters into the maze -- an isolated "prison" that holds several other young men hostage -- he has absolutely no memory of who he is, or was. His importance in the scheme of things is virtually erased, and once he sets it upon himself that he will brave the maze to find a way out for himself and his intrepid team, it all starts to unravel! By the end of the movie, the audience is thrown a mighty curve ball...

The film that's been in progress isn't the true story after all! There's more to these maze runners than meets the eyes; their lives are a shadow of the brutal existence they are forced to endure. In the follow-up chapter "The Maze Runner -- The Scorch Trials" Thomas and his feisty allies have escaped their confine and fallen into the hands of the WCKD -- an arm of an organization that's harvesting young people with a particularly DNA composition in the hope of finding a cure to a plague that's infected the planet.

Thomas along with his young friends much trek across the inhospitable terrain of a world consumed in desolation in the hopes of learning the truth behind the government plot that is enslaving the population. "The Scorch Trials" feels hopeless, but moves in an elegant trajectory mostly on the valor of its cast of young people. There's enough action to keep the audience engaged, but if you're expecting a complete story, you'll have to sit tight!

The Blu-ray experience is further enhanced with some incredibly packed bonus content that extends the mythology beyond just the length of the movie. "Janson's Report (Classified)" reveals a hidden debriefing that was meant for WCKD "eyes only" after the Gladers' escape from the maze, and centers on the film's villain "Game of Thrones" star Aidan Gillen. There are also several deleted and extended scenes that are also fun to watch. A bonus "gag reel" is a nice addition to the mostly sinister plot of the series.

Fans of these adolescent adventures will be thrilled by the turn "The Scorch Trials" takes, but it's still only part of the story, and that may be the movie's only chink in its armor -- that it really isn't an entire film at all, but another episode to the much larger story that has yet to reach its climax. More characters are introduced, Thomas learns more about his true origin and has to deal with the consequences when he is betrayed by one of his own, but in all the trial continues!

"The Maze Runner - The Scorch Trials"
available on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD Combo Pack
$22.99
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