Catholic Review of the Maze Runner 3 Movie

The thing virtually zombies is that they're hard to kill. Sure, you shoot 'em in the caput and that's supposed to do the fob. But when they're rushing and gnashing and flailing at y'all—as modern-mean solar day zombies tend to do—it can be hard to concentrate and get a adept shot. This is particularly true when they're coming at you en masse beyond a desolate wasteland, the kind you notice in so many movies based on Young Adult novels.

Such is the sensation of watching "Maze Runner: TheDeathCure," the third and final film in the series based on James Dashner's novels. It just… won't … end. For better and for worse, information technology's an overwhelming experience. And just when y'all think it's over, there'due south some other coda, and so another. The music will swell to a crescendo, signaling our demand to experience peak emotions and planned catharsis, and so there are more than loose ends to be tied up, more than overly explanatory narration to endure.

I mean, I become it. It takes a long time to detect adeathcure. Simply come up on.

For a while, though, Wes Brawl's flick moves actually well. He'southward directed all iii installments in the franchise—including 2014's "The Maze Runner" and the 2015 follow-up "The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials"—and what separates his films from the overcrowded field of teen dystopian dramas is his visceral sense of space and free energy.

Brawl's activity sequences take a tangible, accessible quality about them, which is especially truthful in his doozy of an opening sequence: a 10-minute car chase/train robbery across the desert that's got a grit, intensity and rough-hewn artful reminiscent of "Mad Max: Fury Route." And equally is the instance in all the "Maze Runner" movies—particularly the original—the sound blueprint is powerful and immersive. You certainly would never want to spend whatsoever fourth dimension in the Glade, or the Scorch, or any of the adjacent, post-apocalyptic hellholes, just Ball'south films make yous feel as if you lot've done just that.

Working from a script past returning writer T.S. Nowlin, he drops us right into the action—there's no "Previously on `The Maze Runner …'"—so if you've forgotten this place and these characters, yous may feel a picayune lost. Still, there's no fourth dimension to worry virtually that. Our hero, the obligatory YA Chosen One, Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), and his crew must free their friends from the clutches of the bad guys at WCKD. (With an acronym like that, what else could they be?)

A squad of scientists led past the coolly minimalist Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson) and a squad of law enforcement agents led past the relentlessly evil Janson (Aidan Gillen) maintain command of the imposing Last Metropolis. (No, really, that's what it's chosen.) Simultaneously, they're still rounding up all the remaining children and performing experiments on them to see who is allowed and can provide a serum tocure this decimated globe of the zombie plague.

The homo at the centre, O'Brien, remains hardworking and blandly handsome, but at least he'southward got compelling figures surrounding him to help him sneak within and burn information technology all down. They're more often than not character actors with intriguing screen presences and captivating faces: Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden and an about unrecognizable Walton Goggins. They are overqualified for this noisy nonsense.

Only they likewise bring an effortless multiculturalism to these movies that I've always appreciated, and they all get a moment to polish. That's especially true when information technology comes to the strong women who play crucial roles in the "Maze Runner" universe, from the villainous Clarkson to the virtuous Salazar to Kaya Scodelario equally Thomas' would-exist love interest, whose inner conflict leaves her facing tough decisions somewhere in the heart.

None of these characters or their stories is nearly as engaging as the movie'southward many gonzo activeness sequences, though. Besides the ane that opens the film with a bang, there'due south a thrilling one toward the end involving a crane, a bus and a bunch of screaming kids that'south begging to be turned into a theme-park ride. In between are massive shootouts, elaborate paw-to-hand gainsay anddeath-defying leaps—both physically and of organized religion.

You lot may forget them all after in the blur of teen angst and annihilation that so many of these types of movies provide, only they're fun while they final. If only they didn't last and then long.