After escaping the confines of a large puzzle board in The Maze Runner, all seemed fine and dandy for Thomas and his merry band of Gladers as they (spoiler alert) were whisked off by helicopter to safety by people whom they believe to be their saviors. Thomas, as instinctive as he his, smells stinks of deceptions and breaks wind for fresh air and greener pastures; however, the grass ain’t greener on the other side. In fact, there is no grass; no signs of civilization; no real hope for survival. All they have to rely upon is a hunch: head towards the mountains and find The Cure for a disease known as The Scorch.
Action! Action! And more…. wait for it… Disappointment.
Unlike the book, the reader had to endure the suffering terrain of scorched land with the characters. Our wayfarer Gladers endured the most treacherous of conditions: extreme thirst, blistering heat, and a desert thunderstorm that came out of the virtual sky to wreak all kinds of havoc upon the group who — only miles away– had a glimpse hope upon the horizon. Some dude, Winston, lost an arm with a leg and Minho attracted a lightning bolt to dazzling delight, a moment depicted perfected from the original source text.
The artistic creativity the screenwriter and director took to make this book entity cinematic is a feat that deserves applaud.
Scorch Trials strays from the narrative of the novel a lot but keeps the same beats of the story structure. The fact they made the character Jorge, who in my imagining was more of a man in his early twenties than one who looks to be clocking sixty is a major “huh?” The book never really aged Jorge but the guy they cast, Giancarlo Esposito, seemed out of place paling around with a bunch of twenty-somethings.
There was also an element or storyline added to this movie that was not included in the story arch of the novel and seemed to come out of nowhere as a major character reveal for Thomas. Even with the slightest hint of exposition relayed by Jorge I just could not buy into as important. Maybe when I read the third book, The Death Cure, this addition to the story will all be explained. My theory, however, is they [writer and director] sought to introduce elements of the last installment into this the sequel as a way to conserve precious screen time for the final film.