With the Hunger Games drawing to a close at the end of this
year and the Divergent series only getting worse with each instalment, the
third-wave of YA adaptations may soon be reaching its conclusion… or, at least,
we can only hope lest we have to sit through the same darkly shot
post-apocalyptic analogies for high school for another three bloody years.
However, it seems that we may be able to squeeze at least one more good series
out of the fad: The Maze Runner.
2014’s The Maze Runner, in my not-so-humble opinion, is easily one of the most underrated films of the year, if not of the entire wave. It’s probably one of the few times that the attempts at analogy with these films has panned out, as the plot works as a surprisingly nuanced, if flawed, fable on the transition from adolescence to adulthood: Venturing out into the unknown, leaving your old ways behind you, discovering the opposite gender in a new light; coming from a bunch of first-time writers under a first-time director, this is kind of astounding. As such, other than the complete surprise of John Wick, this was the film that I have been most looking forward to a sequel to; with how cynical I can be when it comes to my own expectations, it’s rare that I genuinely anticipate a good film these days. So, how does this sequel turn out?
2014’s The Maze Runner, in my not-so-humble opinion, is easily one of the most underrated films of the year, if not of the entire wave. It’s probably one of the few times that the attempts at analogy with these films has panned out, as the plot works as a surprisingly nuanced, if flawed, fable on the transition from adolescence to adulthood: Venturing out into the unknown, leaving your old ways behind you, discovering the opposite gender in a new light; coming from a bunch of first-time writers under a first-time director, this is kind of astounding. As such, other than the complete surprise of John Wick, this was the film that I have been most looking forward to a sequel to; with how cynical I can be when it comes to my own expectations, it’s rare that I genuinely anticipate a good film these days. So, how does this sequel turn out?
