Suspense runs high in The Maze Runner

Mazes are usually good fun, but not when they change layouts every night, house disturbing monsters and serve as a prison. This is the basis of The Maze Runner, the new film based on James Dashner’s bestselling novel of the same title.

Directed by Wes Ball, the film follows Dashner’s story fairly well, but screenwriters Noah Oppenheim, Grant Pierce Myers and T.S. Nowlin do make some changes to create a more cinematic story. The film will please loyal fans of the novel, as well as those who haven’t read it, with its inventive plot, constant suspense and cliffhanger ending.

About 50 teenaged boys, each with no prior memories of himself other than his name, are trapped in a grassy plain, what they call the “Glade.” The Glade is surrounded by an impenetrable maze – presumably the only way out. Each month, one “Glader,” as the boys have named themselves, is brought into the maze via an elevator called the “Box.”

The maze that imprisons the Gladers is tall, concrete and covered in vines. In the film, it is elaborate and alive, changing in a dramatic and destructive fashion, with loud screeches, crumbling concrete and rotating walls. The maze is made up of a vast expanse of concrete — a circle with the Glade at its center, surrounded by eight outer sections, each impossibly complicated.

The maze doors open each morning and close again each night. Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) is told from the beginning that no one survives a night in the maze.

That’s because of the “Grievers,” the monsters that inhabit the maze. They are grotesque amalgamations of robotics and organic matter, beautifully disturbing. They leave a trail of sticky goo wherever they go and have deadly metal legs, sharp teeth and a robotic tail like that of a scorpion that injects a hallucinogenic poison into those it stings.

This month, it’s Thomas’s turn in the Box, and things are about to change. He has an innate curiosity that the other boys seem to lack, and he immediately begins asking questions. Who put the boys in the maze? Why? Where do the Grievers come from? Most importantly, how do they get out?

In his first significant role in a film, O’Brien distances himself from his sassy character, Stiles, on MTV’s Teen Wolf and establishes himself as a young adult action hero. O’Brien conveys Thomas’s curiosity and frustration with being trapped, and he demonstrates his emotional range with a heartbreaking scene near the end of the film. Thomas quickly becomes an explorer of the maze, a runner, giving O’Brien the chance to show off his athletic abilities as well.

Opposite O’Brien is Kaya Scodelario, who portrays Teresa, the only girl and the final Glader dropped into the maze. Teresa’s character is downplayed significantly compared to her role in the book, so Scodelario is made to look like little more than a plot device intended to trigger change.

The only good thing that comes from the lack of female characters is the absence of the love triangle that is typical of young adult films nowadays. In fact, there is no romance at all; the plot is driven by the Gladers’ efforts to escape the maze.

Although the film does not in any way approach the glass ceiling for women, it should be applauded for the racial diversity of its cast. Only four of the characters with significant screen time are white. The others are Asian, African American and Hispanic, and they are much more concerned with discovering an escape than with their skin colors.

The film presents a science fiction take on a Lord of the Flies-type scenario. A group of teenage boys are trapped somewhere without a means of escape. Some form of civilization develops but is followed by chaos.

However, The Maze Runner puts less focus on the relationships between the boys and more on the maze itself. By giving so much attention to the special effects of the maze and the Grievers, the film loses much of the relationships between the boys that is present in the book.

Gally (Will Poulter) dislikes Thomas from the start, but the motive behind his hatred is thin. The movie paints Gally as a makeshift villain until and even after Thomas puts a face to those that are behind the creation of the maze; Gally’s constant need to butt heads with Thomas feels childish and lacks reason.

Despite this, The Maze Runner does not disappoint. It is a suspenseful movie with a unique plot line and an ending that will have viewers counting down the days until its sequel, The Scorch Trials, is released next September.