Maze Runner: The Death Cure

A bunch of boys are trapped in a mysterious Glade at the center of a massive Maze full of monsters. Some of them have been there for years. Then Thomas arrives, and he is the Hero, and also handsome and brilliant, so they all escape, like, right away (but not before a Girl arrives for him to fall in love with, because what else are girls for?).

That was The Maze Runner. It was like Lord of the Flies, but nicer.

Once the escapees are outside, they discover that it’s the apocalypse. The world is desertified, and mostly everyone has turned into Crank zombies because of the Flare virus. There is an evil organization called WCKD running the end of the world, and they were experimenting on the kids in the Maze because they are immune to the virus and were hoping to find a cure, which doesn’t even make any sense but OMG Thomas is so cute. This was Maze Runner 2, The Scorch Trials. It was a Lonely Planet sort of apocalypse, backpacking into the Mad Max bazaar with your best pals.

And now we have Number 3, The Death Cure. (Spoiler: Death is not cured.) This time Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) is leading a rescue mission to grab their Glade friend Minho (Ki Hong Lee) from WCKD HQ, which is in The Last City. It’s just a city. Like one you’d recognize today, but with walls to keep the Crank zombies out. Its inhabitants walk around wearing ties and high heels and riding buses and checking their smartphones and are they kidding, it’s the end of the world and civilization is dead and how do they have the resources for any of this? How did they have the resources to build the Maze? None of this makes any sense.

But Thomas! He is so… special. He is always right and noble and upstanding. Even when people tell him that he is wrong to do something – like, say, rescue a friend despite putting everyone in danger – those people always come around to his way of thinking and show up just in the nick of time to help him. Everyone loves Thomas, so who cares if every plot point that isn’t a cliché is a plot hole. You will feel like you’ve seen this movie before even while you are watching it for the first (and only) time. Before Thomas and his friends sneak into The Last City, outside in the scorched-dead world, it all feels like Fury Road fan fiction enacted by enthusiastic cosplayers: so cute and funky, this apocalypse!

Inside The Last City is a bit Blade Runner-meets-RoboCop with a dash of Gattaca, lots of neon and glass and sneaking past security cameras into the sleek evil medical labs where Minho is the subject of experiments. Apparently they are scaring him with virtual reality while they are draining his blood to get that Flare virus cure, and this is “not as effective as the Maze” where they left kids for years without taking any blood, so does anyone actually know anything? Maybe all the real doctors died in the apocalypse.

Anyway, the Girl from the Maze, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), is here, and she’s still a villain (something we discovered before this movie opened), one of the maybe-doctors working on a cure, but Thomas still has feelings for her. “There’s something about your blood I don’t understand,” she says, which will never be on a Valentine card. Thomas is so special that even his blood is special! And it’s still not even the cure for death.

This movie lies to you from the opening credits, and then goes on to be two hours and 20 minutes of empty blah. Generic characters who aren’t even distinct enough to be stereotypes. A pedestrian collapse of civilization that has no resonance at all even when it should. Bland flattened emotion that barely rises above the level of “Go on without me!” / “I ain’t leavin’ you, man!”

It would be hilarious if that wasn’t happening while you’re restraining yourself from shouting at the screen, “Please, just be over already.”

THE MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE (* ) Directed by Wes Ball • Starring Dylan O’Brien , Rosa Salazar, Thomas Brodie-Sangster • Rated PG-13 • 142 min. • At Century Cinemas Del Monte, Century Marina, Maya Cinemas, Northridge Cinemas.