Add this movie onto the list of post-apocalyptic teen romps that see’s a ‘rebel’ hero fight back against whatever system is denying him/her, except that this one is no where near as good as say the “Hunger Games” or even “Divergent” series.. It’s along the lines of a bad “Twilight” movie – wait..were any of those really good..ok..you have your answer. ha!  Let’s just say unless your in the median of 11-15yrs of age, you might end up feeling like I did..which was..”Why did I spend money on this movie when there are soooo many other films that have got to be better, to be seen. 😀

To be fair, it’s not all horrible. Really it isn’t. It, like all the others, is also based on a book, from which I gather is A LOT better than the movie and that happens with all sorts of book-to-film projects.  My beef with this one was it just all happened so fast, you could see it all coming and it wasn’t as near as suspenseful as it could have been.  The movie follows “Thomas” (Dylan O’Brien) who finds himself transported and trapped into the Glade, an all-boys encampment of sorts, fending for themselves, where every month someone new is ‘delivered’ along with supplies.  No one has any memory of how they got there, why they are there etc. Except we know that there is a big maze which according to leader of the pack, “Alby” (Aml Ameen) goes furthers than we can possibly imagine, moves and changes every night and he has a group of the some of the boys he designated as ‘runners’ to try and map out the maze.  One problem..there is also creatures that live in the maze called “Grievers”  which is a cross between a spider & scorpion, that of course kill anyone that tries and are some of the worst movies creatures I’ve seen in quite some time.. You know the dumdedumdum roll when they announce, ‘no one has ever made it over night in the maze’  because of course that means that Thomas, our hero, is going to have to get the job done!!. ZZZZZzzzzzzz   There is the usual rumblings when he tries and then when the first girl they’ve ever had, “Teresa” (Kaya Scodelario) shows up in the transport and actually knows the name Thomas..well then everyone goes into an uproar.  This is where they could’ve really taken the film some place intriguing but failed to.

So as not to give the entire plot away..because if you’re watching the movie and you don’t see it coming, it’s because you’re under 18.. ha! Seriously, not making that much fun of it because I like some of these movies just fine..hey I even read/saw all the Twilight books/movies..(I know I know..there were points that it was reeeally hard to do), And I find the acting by a lot of this cast to be pretty good…I especially liked “Gally” (Will Poulter), “Minho” (Ki Hong Lee), “Newt” (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and of course “Chuck” (Blake Cooper) who provided the bit of comic relief needed in this tale.  I would have probably loved this movie much more had there been maybe a more “Lord of the Flies’ element to it. I mean they tried a little to do it, but it just didn’t come off as scary, thrilling or creepy and it certainly could have used that aspect to jazz it up some.

Grade: C- if you liked Twilight you will like this  ha!   D  for all others 😀

(see grading scale)

#peggyatthemovies