Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

"The maze was just the beginning."

2015 2h 11m EN

👍

6.7

SOLID

★6.7TMDB · 11,287

Science FictionActionThrillerAdventure

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Thomas and his fellow Gladers face their greatest challenge yet: searching for clues about the mysterious and powerful organization known as WCKD. Their journey takes them to the Scorch, a desolate landscape filled with unimaginable obstacles. Teaming up with resistance fighters, the Gladers take on WCKD’s vastly superior forces and uncover its shocking plans for them all.

“The maze was just the beginning.”

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Cast

Dylan O'Brien
Thomas
Kaya Scodelario
Teresa Agnes
Thomas Brodie-Sangster
Newt
Giancarlo Esposito
Jorge
Ki Hong Lee
Minho
Dexter Darden
Frypan
Rosa Salazar
Brenda
Patricia Clarkson
Ava Paige

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Wes Ball
Writers: T.S. Nowlin
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Mid-budget at $61M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 5.1× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 11 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "The Maze Runner Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

CAST

Did you know

235+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Wes Ball, shot by Gyula Pados. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by John Paesano. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Dan Zimmerman shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Wes Ball directs. Gyula Pados behind the camera. John Paesano scores. Dan Zimmerman cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Mid-budget at $61M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.
2Made its money back 5.1× over at the box office.
3Released 11 years ago.
4Part of the "The Maze Runner Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
5235+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
6Directed by Wes Ball, shot by Gyula Pados. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
7Original score by John Paesano. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
8Editor Dan Zimmerman shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
9Dylan O'Brien and Kaya Scodelario and Thomas Brodie-Sangster carry the top of the cast.
10Marketing tagline: "The maze was just the beginning.".
11IMDB entry: tt4046784 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
1211,287 TMDB user ratings logged — serious cultural footprint.
13Classified under 21 themes, including "based on novel or book", "escape", "resistance", "dystopia".
14Released under 20 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Gyula Pados
Original score: John Paesano
Editing: Dan Zimmerman
Production design: Daniel T. Dorrance
Costume design: Sanja Milkovic Hays
Makeup / hair: Leonard MacDonald
VFX supervisor: R. Christopher White
Sound: Ron Bartlett
Stunt coordinator: George Cottle
Runtime: 131 min · 2h 11m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $61,000,000
Box office: $312,296,056
Return: 512% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

Part of

The Maze Runner Collection

The Maze Runner series consists of three science-fiction dystopian action adventure films based on the novel series by American author James Dashner. When Thomas wakes up trapped in a maze with a group of other boys, he has no memory of the outside world other than dreams about an organization known as W.C.K.D. Only by piecing together fragments of his past with clues he discovers in the maze can Thomas hope to uncover his purpose and a way to escape.

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Wes Ball

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What people are saying

Frank Ochieng2015-10-11
It is quite an automatic instinct to compare and contrast the first installment of 2014’s ‘The Maze Runner’ with the arrival of the latest entry in director Wes Ball’s distant dystopian drama ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’. The original blueprint effectively captured a unique time and place of mystique and other morbid curiosities. The audience was craftily introduced to The Glade, a head-scratching venue out in the middle of nowhere while being surrounded by a massive maze that pretty much rendered its survivors in vulnerability and uncertainty. Well, ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ looks to revisit that same kind of mystifying aura where our young and daring protagonists face the surreal obstacles in a futuristic facility that begs for the same kind of grandiose ambivalence. Sadly, ‘Scorch Trials’ is a derivative follow-up shadow of its former pronounced presentation. This formulaic fantasy fails to provide any distinctive punch or promise to its more competent predecessor. As a post-apocalyptic Young Adult-oriented narrative ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ never really invests in its adventurous characterizations that seem to blankly react to the jittery surroundings without any genuine conviction. It certainly is not advisable to saddle a pack of imperiled individuals in a cocoon of dream-like devastation and not have them equally match the imaginative SF sensibilities of their enthralling, enveloped universe. One can speculate as to whether ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ does any justice to the James Dashner epic-driven YA novels or not. Still, there should be a sense of excitable freshness and intrigue to this eye-opening film project that comes off strangely as remote and mechanical despite the whimsical feel to its wasteland of wonderment. Sure, some will be partially engaged in the exploits of our young harried heroes bouncing from post to post in a desolate desert known as the Scorch where unpredictable encounters with undesirable creatures and the regional elements are recounted with Ball’s simplistic by-the-dots direction. There will be your predictable share of over-the-top villains, outlandish yet awestruck special effects imagery and a centerpiece for youth-oriented romancing among the ruins. However, ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ should do a better job in whisking its viewers away in a bells-and-whistles story that should be convincingly subversive and challenging. Back in the Maze mold madness is Glade stud Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his band of fellow wanderers in Theresa (Kaya Scodelario), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), and Frypan (Dexter Darden). The group had learned that their ‘a-MAZE-ing’ (sorry…could not resist) past experiences had been at the devilish hands of the evil paramilitary outfit known as WCKD (as in the pronounced word ‘wicked’). The head honcho of the aforementioned WCKD is none other than diabolical diva Dr. Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson). So now Thomas and his endangered entourage (along with a few more disposable tag-a-longs) are forced to roam in the treacherous Scorch where the ominous run-ins with the resident beastly zombie Cranks are inevitable. Of course, there are other factors working against Thomas and his Gladers. First, they must constantly hunt for their safety guaranteed in the arms of the resistance faction called The Right Hand based in mountainous terrain. Secondly, there is also the matter of an outbreak known as the Solar Flare virus that is running amok and the cure is to draw blood from those that are immune. The underhanded Janson (Aiden Gillen, from television’s ‘Game Of Thrones’) heads up the laboratory where the shifty agenda for collecting pure blood from unsuspecting hosts is hatched. So the dilemma is presented as such: should Thomas and his put-upon colleagues be the sacrificial lambs in an experimentation that could benefit the numerous lives of their exposed society? The problem, among others, is that ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ never seems to distinguish itself among the crop of other YA-related feature films that seem collectively familiar in theme and tone. The long line of impish and impulsive fare that includes ‘The Hunger Games’ film franchise and ‘Divergent’ movie series has already saturated the movie market to the point of no return. Unfortunately, this leaves little room for error for derivative knock-off films such as ‘Maze Runner: Scorch Trials’ to not only echo the same kind of entertainment value but be considered a few notches off the scale in doing so. T.S. Nowlin’s screenplay is shockingly synthetic and that is inexcusable for an escapist SF flick using Dashner’s colourful and descriptive tomes as its inspirational source. A few of the interesting supporting characters come and go while registering some servicing interest such as the dashing duo Jorge and Brenda (Giancarlo Esposito and Rosa Salazar) that befriend the Gladers en route to their destination for comfort and calmness. Gillen’s Janson is serviceable as the slimy opportunist blood baiter. Otherwise, the main performers that make up this cosmetic caper bring little to uplift this pseudo calculating landscape of imagined isolation and desperation. Somehow, the charismatic presence of both O’Brien’s Thomas and Scodelario’s Theresa seem watered down from the first film. For the second time around it is kind of a tough sell for ‘Scorch Trials’ to get the obligatory mouse to chase after the cheese in this particular misplaced maze. Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (2015) 20th Century Fox 2 hrs. 11 mins. Starring: Dylan O’Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Dexter Darden, Ki Hong Lee, Patricia Clarkson, Aidan Gillen, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosa Salazar, Lilli Taylor and Barry Pepper Directed by: Wes Ball MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy/Dystopian Drama/Young Adult Action & Suspense Critic’s rating: stars (out of 4 stars)
Reno2016-01-24
★ 7/10
The adventure expands outside the maze to seek the answers. Another teen movie in the mid series on the line of 'Divergent' and 'Hunger Games'. As an adult, I don't know what to expect from it, but entertainment was the priority. The first film was just an introduction that happened in a small and a single location like the film 'Cube'. Now it has outspread in a large extent with more new characters and takes a wider adventure in the wastelands. Many doubts from the previous film were cleared, yet a few need to be clarified and hoping for the next one to do that job. But anyway the suspense was this franchise's specialty, that simply reminds us the TV series 'Lost'. This second part can be compared with plenty of other post apocalyptic films, but still I liked it better than the first. The best thing was they retained the same director and he's going to be here for the next film as well. But I'm more interested in the prequel, I mean the fourth film than the third which brings an end to the story moving forward. Because the maze holds the key for many unresolved issues. So I'm anticipating the prequel trilogy than the current one to learn how it all began. Surprisingly, many new additions like zombies, bounty hunters in the mainstream boosted the film with its variety. Gives us a creepy atmosphere, along thrilling running and chasing. The twist was not that great, but kind of unpredictable, and again due to the mysteries surrounding it, it created more curious about what might happen next. 6½/10
Andres Gomez2016-04-26
★ 3/10
Let's get to the point. This is bad. A dystopian future full of conspiracies in which we throw the typical ingredients thinking that, magically, would make a good movie: teenagers, zombies, a "Mad-Max"-like desert and a stupid story in which main characters and their enemies behave stupidly at every step. Quite a forgettable one ...