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Review Roundup: Critics Weigh In On MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE

By: Feb. 01, 2018
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Review Roundup: Critics Weigh In On MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE  Image

In the epic finale to the Maze Runner saga, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary Last City, a WCKD-controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all.

Anyone who makes it out alive will get answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze.

MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE is the final installment of the trilogy from director Wes Ball. All questions are answered as Thomas and the remaining Gladers lead their final charge to save their friends and defeat WCKD in their most grueling maze yet on January 26, 2018!

See what the critics think:

Andrew Barker, Variety: "Death Cure" can certainly fall victim to overkill - the climax drags out several scenes longer than it has to; the thunderous sound design grows deadening with one explosion after another - and there are more than a few key plot turns that seem to have lost some important context in the transition to the screen. But damned if Ball doesn't pull off some impressive firefights and last-minute escapes once the action gets humming. "The Maze Runner" was Ball's first film, and his ability to craft comprehensible setpieces has steadily improved throughout the trilogy."

Scott Tobias, NPR: "Yet even after 142 minutes of The Death Cure, an active and expensive-looking finale, The Maze Runner never solved for the "why." And not "why" in terms of plot holes - e.g. "Why was such a literally labyrinthine plan necessary to discover an antidote?"- but "why" in the more existential sense. Here's a series that's borrowed liberally from Lord of the Flies, The Road Warrior, and any number of fast-moving zombie pictures, but discarded their themes like yesterday's lunch. "

Alonso Duralde, The Wrap: ""The Death Cure" provides no exposition or title cards up front to bring you up to speed if you missed the previous chapters or if, like me, you saw them but can scarcely remember the slightest detail about them, apart from a maze and some running. Nonetheless, we're plunged right into the first of several splashy stunts, wherein a plucky band of rebels hijack a train, capture a futuristic fighter plane and liberate several dozen pre-adolescents."

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: "There's a pleasing sort of B-movie-on-an-A+-budget simplicity to Death Cure (if not its running time; it's nearly two and a half hours, which seems like a lot to ask of Snapchat attention spans). With the mystery of why they're all trapped in this hellscape in the first place mostly resolved, the main players actually get to breathe and relate, at least when they're not busy gasping and running."

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian: "There was, arguably, a rigour and clarity to that claustrophobic setting. Once it's gone, it is just common-or-garden YA action: sexless derring-do in the service of a "Resistance" while the sleek corporate villains in odd sci-fi outfits glide in deathly white corridors. This is at least concentrated dramatically in being brought to an endpoint. For fans only."



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