The Maze Runner: The Death Cure: Despite Its Discrepancies It's a Great Film

Movie Review: The Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018)
Version: Theater purchase

Finally, the third and final chapter of The Maze Runner series, The Death Cure, has illuminated the big screen. As with the earlier films, this movie doesn't track perfectly with the books on which it is based, but The Death Cure seems to go out of its way to tell a different story. That's its greatest weakness. For while Thomas, the main hero, survives the end of the story, the movie forgoes the uplifting ending of the book.

In this telling of the story, Thomas, Newt, and other Glade survivors of W.C.K.D.'s (WICKED's*) efforts to find a cure for the flame mount a rescue mission to save Minho, who was captured at the end of the second installment of the series (The Scorch Trials). Unlike in the book version, here W.C.K.D.'s research facility is in a city in the mountains, surrounded by a rebellious population looking to take down the organization responsible for spreading the infection. Gally, Thomas's foe from the beginning of The Maze Runner series, shows up again, despite being killed off early on to help the team get inside the well guarded city and into the research facility, where they face off against their arch enemy, Janson. Still working closely with Janson, the security arm of W.C.K.D., and Ava Paige, the lead scientist, is Teresa, whom Thomas has been close to romantically but opposed to in the search for freedom. And so, the battle is on to find and save Minho, whom W.C.K.D. has captured to torture for the much needed cure.

*In the book the organization is known as WICKED. In the movie it's been changed to W.C.K.D.

Now, keep in mind, in the book version Minho was just one of the test subjects. It was Thomas who was the hope of mankind for his blood's ability to fight off the infection. So the film reverses this idea, although they kind of bring it up again at the end of the film.

And in the book version, Thomas, Minho, and others visit the city in the mountains but leave it to return to WICKED headquarters along the ocean in the south, where they take their stand against WICKED. When the head of WICKED realizes how wrong it is that they have put the Gladers through so much to find a cure, they release them into a final paradise to live a better life, isolated from the destruction of the infection. In this film, the Gladers escape on their own, but we have no idea what their future will be.

Finally, we have the problem of the film's title. In the book's version, the title makes sense because WICKED wants to torture Thomas until death to find the ultimate cure. In the film's version, there is no reference to death in finding the cure -- in fact, there is no contextual relationship between the story and the title. To me, that is the ultimate sin to this film.

All that said, if you have never read the books you can enjoy this film. It is full of action. The special effects are great. The characters are just as compelling, played to the full by returning actors Dylan O'Brien as Thomas, Ki Hong Lee as Minho, Kaya Scodelario as Teresa, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Newt, and Aidan Gillen as the despicable Janson. The scene of Newt dying of the disease is just as haunting to see in the film as it was in reading it in the book, although the circumstances are a bit different. Without knowing the original story, The Death Cure caps the film trilogy well. It's worth seeing.

If you are a fan of the book series, you may have trouble with the freedom the filmmakers took in rewriting what was a wonderful story to suit their own creative needs. The first two films didn't vary as much, so this third film was a shock to me. Still, The Death Cure is a great film every Maze Runner fan should see.

The Fever Code: The Well Rounded Back Story to The Maze Runner Series

Book Review: The Fever Code by James Dashner
Version: Public Library

I finally finished the series - the three originals and the two sequels, and it was all a great read!

The Fever Code (2016) takes off some time after The Kill Order leaves off. One character from the latter book survives that story (DeeDee), although you don't find out about who that is until about halfway through the former.

The Kill Order was about the initial purposeful spread of the Flare by government forces to reduce the population after the Sun flared and made the Earth unsustainable. But the virus morphed and ran beyond the government's ability to control it. The Fever Code is about the government's effort to find a cure for it. Or so you as a reader and the main characters are led to believe.

If you are a fan of The Maze Runner series (The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure), you likely wondered about the back story on all those interesting characters. The Kill Order tells that story, too. We meet Thomas, Teresa, Newt, Minho, Alby, Gally, Chuck, and others for the first time. Also Aris and Rachel. Jorge and Brenda, too. We also meet the minds behind WICKED for the first time. And it brings us right up to the moment Thomas emerges from the cage into the Glade. This is how the Maze was built, how Thomas and Teresa help create it, and how the kids got there.

Just as with its predecessors, The Kill Order is a well written, well paced, well told sci-fi thriller in the young adult genre pitting innocent teens against the scheming adults. The kids are made to believe they are part of an effort to find a cure for the Flare, but along the way they begin to wonder if they are just being manipulated, if this isn't all some sick effort by morbid adults to torture them. And one young man's acquiescence to help the adults to help save humanity becomes a drive to save his friends. This is the second prequel to The Maze Runner series, through which this theme eventually runs, but everything in this book is set up before Thomas's mind is wiped of its memories. And you learn here the subtext for Thomas's motivations for the story lines to follow.

I'm a big fan of Dashner's series. His characters are well rounded, the plot is well thought out and developed, and the setting is amazing. I read through it in a few quick days. While most of us began by reading The Maze Runner (because it was published first), if you're new to the series I would begin with The Kill Order and read it order that the story unfolds, following up with The Fever Code, then The Maze Runner, and so on. That way it all makes sense. However, if you want to make the adventure a bit more mysterious, begin with The Maze Runner series and then pick up the prequels to fill in the back story. Any way you do it, the five books are a great read. The Fever Code was the perfect bridge between.

The Death Cure: A Satisfying Conclusion to the Maze Runner Series

Book Review: The Death Cure by James Dashner

What a great conclusion to the Maze Runner series was The Death Cure!

I bought The Death Cure after watching The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials movies. After being disoriented by reading The Death Cure, because it didn't seem to connect with what I saw in the movies, I began reading the series from scratch. I'm glad I did, because while the movies track generally with the books, the movies diverge from the books in some significant ways and the books are - as is generally true when comparing movies with their original books - much better.

As interesting and compelling as The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials were, The Death Cure didn't proceed or end in the way I expected it to. And yet, it ended in a totally satisfying way. Well, there was the way Dashner dealt with Newt, which I didn't find satisfying. And I would like what happened to Teresa to have been different. But Thomas's end was very satisfying, as was Minho's. And what happened to Rat Man was equally satisfying. I thank Dashner for that.

The movie version of The Death Cure is supposed to release in February 2017. I have read some speculation of how it will treat the characters considering the departures the other movies took from their original books, and I have my own theories. I believe the screenwriters will bring the movie arc back to its original plot as the others did, even if it departs from it in other ways. But there will be a significant departure that I won't conjecture on here. It relates back to the relationship between Thomas and Brenda and something significant that occurred near the end of The Scorcher Trials movie.

Ah, but this is a book review. Back on topic. The story line moves into a more zombie-esk extreme tale in this last book of the trilogy, which brings Thomas, Minho, Newt, and the other survivors to Denver. I'm not a fan of zombie stories. But the ending of the story more than makes up for this strange diversion from the tale.

On the whole, The Death Cure fits in nicely with the other two parts of the series, and if you enjoyed them you will enjoy this final piece of the puzzle. I look forward to seeing the movie when it comes out in 2017 and seeing how the filmmakers bring that version to conclusion. I hope it is as successful as the book.

As a fan of The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials, I can highly recommend The Death Cure. Enjoy!

By the way, I thought the fourth book, The Kill Order, was another sequel. It isn't. It's actually a prequel to the series, and I'm reading it now. I'll review it, too, once I finish it.