The Reaction Paper: The Maze Runner

The paper is my reaction to the movie The Maze Runner that has recently gone on screens. It is a screen version of the book with the same name written by James Dashner. The story about the boys living together in a strange place is not new. It is similar to The Hunger Games. However, the movie is interesting and entertaining. James Dashner came up with an excellent, in terms of the action, story where the heroes have to fight constantly for their life in a situation full of suspense and uncertainty.

The main character is a teenager Thomas, who wakes up in the elevator at the beginning of the film. He does not remember anything, even his name. He discovers that there is a village with approximately 50 other boys closed in a maze. They are trying to find a way out of the maze that surrounds their residence. Meanwhile, they created a successful, due to the established strict rules, village.

The film has a good graphics. Its visual content attracts the attention of the audience. The walls of the maze look like real and deterrent, the concept of the tribal formation in the center of these walls promises to open many secrets. Monsters are fairly realistic, and the special effects are amazing. Wes Ball coped well as an experienced art director and showed on the screen the original world woven from the mix of tropical plants and concrete metal constructions.

 Some events in the plot surprise. For example, it was unexpected that in the cage that arrived into the village of boys was a girl. She was the first girl to arrive in the glade for the recent 3 years of their existence there (Ball, 2014). She had in her hand a short note that said “She is the last”. It raised many questions. Who had sent the note? Was it a human being? Was it a creator of the maze? What will happen to the boys? At the first sight, it seems that they became prisoners till the end of their life, and there is no hope to find the exit. The maze changes its construction each night with the mysterious sounds of an old heavy wheel.

It is difficult for me to understand the main idea of the film, because there are a lot of themes raised by the director. The author did not concentrate on one topic. In my opinion, one of the main ideas was to show the importance of trust between people in a difficult situation and their hope to find a solution; it was underlined in many dialogs. At the same time, the meaning of the maze and the reason why the boys were there represented a mysterious idea of the film.

I found interesting the decision of the director to cast mainly young and unknown actors. It makes the movie vital and creates the atmosphere of a real compassion and sympathy to the heroes. In the book, the main character is very pleasant and friendly; at the same time, he is confident and ready to act. Dylan O’Brien depicted all main features of Thomas described in the book. He showed perfectly his ability to think and analyze the maze. The film has an amazing OST created by John Paesano. It is daring to listen to it.

Besides all positive aspects, the film has many drawbacks. Some decisions of the heroes are irrational, and some events in the film are illogical. For example, it is unclear how there were only a few killed in the village has during the period of three years. Each morning, the runners rush to the maze in search of an exit. One of the runners then showed to Thomas the hand-made model of the investigated maze. At the same time, it is said that the maze changes its appearance each night. Is there a certain algorithm of those changes? I think that the author did not realize well the idea that he wanted to show.      

However, the magnificent presentation of the film hides a rather meager content that is extremely boring. Of course, this is a good entertaining movie, but I would like to see more logical games described in the book. In the book, the author opened deep personalities of each character, showed their interaction in a closed community, and long logical searches for a solution. He raised the questions of adolescence and mercy (Dashner, 2009).

In the end, The Maze Runner turned out to be a fascinating, beautiful film with a disappointing end. It is unbelievable that such a great story was created to tell the audience that something bad had happened again with the Earth and all that we saw was an experiment with no goal. Many analytical and logical statements from the book were missed in the film. I think that the book is better than the movie. In general, the film holds the viewers in tension and makes worrying about the next step of the characters.