âThis is crazy, Thomas!â grizzled rebel leader Vince (Barry Pepper) yells over the rumbling motor of his off-road truck as he and the aforementioned Thomas (Dylan OâBrien) peel across dusty brushland towards the crackerjack train heist that opens Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Things stay at that same yelling! punching! and jumping! pace for the next two-and-a-half hours in this, the final installment of the Maze Runner trilogyâthe dystopian teen series that introduced a ragtag group of murdering (and murdered) teenage boys to a huge, dangerous maze in The Maze Runner (2014), pitted those boys against a desert full of angry, virus-infected zombies in Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015), and concludes with the now-hardened murder-teens executing a seat-of-their-pants assault on the stronghold of scientists who have been experimenting on them!
Beyond that, there isnât really that much to the Maze Runner movies other than (1) âWaaaah, everyone is so mean to us boys for no reason!â and (2) Go go go go go! That said, the series has grown on me over the years. The first Maze Runner did so well at the box office that subsequent installments saw their budgets ratchet up, and all that moneyâcoupled with the retention of director Wes Ball for all three films, which is unheard of in the dystopian teen genreâhas produced some slick, over-the-top, sci-fi fun. For sure, Death Cure reaches further than its grasp in a vain attempt to close the story on a meaningful noteâthe last 45 minutes resemble the âDear Sisterâ SNL skit where everyone keeps shooting one another and melodramatically dyingâbut who can really blame this gaggle of murder-teens for trying to pretend like all the murdering they did meant something?