If immitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the producers of “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” really are infatuated with the films they steal from. This sequel to the 2014 original picks up where that movie last left off with Thomas (Dylan O Brien) and his fellow mazers 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 superior forces and uncover its shocking plans for them all. For those who don’t know, i really enjoyed “The Maze Runner”, so i was really hoping that Director Wes Ball could continue some of that magic. Boy was i wrong. This film is etched in sloppiness, from it’s lack of back story for the supporting characters around Thomas, to the ignorance for the fans with the lack of involvement adapted from the novel content. I haven’t read the books, but i attended the movie with someone who did, and she told me that while the first film is easily 90% faithful to it’s novel content, the sequel would be lucky to garner 30% of what it entailed. I’m not saying a film has to be exactly like it’s source content, but it certainly matters when these best selling books aren’t being given the proper respect in translation. I mentioned before that the film continues in it’s struggle to tell us any single detail on the side characters, and it’s sad that this is reality when we are over four hours into this series. Why does this matter? Because when a character is killed or put in peril, we don’t care about their struggles, and even more importantly, we aren’t emotionally invested in the key plot points of the film. This all results in a snails pacing for “The Scorch Trials”. The film clocks in at slightly over two hours, with little to no edge-of-your-seat moments. The rarity of these scenes are nicely shot, with a lot of really nice railtrack sliding camera work to follow these kids when they are being chased, but we don’t get enough of them to match the mysterious shifting of the maze from the original film. I have to give credit to the adult actors of the film, for without them, this movie would fall even lower than the disappointment it hoisted. It’s always nice to see my favorite underrated actor Barry Pepper with a very important role. After a role like the one he had as the sharpshooter in “Saving Private Ryan”, it’s good to see him handy with an arsenal of firearms in this film. Patricia Clarkson was good, but considering she is one of the main characters of this franchise, it’s sad that have to see her character’s progression with her sitting on the sidelines and not in front of the camera where she belongs. Giancarlo Esposito though, is by far the best part of this film. It’s great to see him play a protagonist and not an antagonist like the one he played in “Breaking Bad”. He is really the first adult that these kids choose to trust, and his interraction with O Brien left me thankful that his character was given a nice progression through opening up to these total strangers who show up on his doorstep fresh out of the scorch. The film’s biggest problem is it’s lack of identity that it still hasn’t found after two films. It’s easy to see the comparisons to similar Y.A novels like “The Hunger Games” and “The Divergent Series”, but what amazed me was the lack of creative integrity that was presented in the scenes taken from non-related films that were too authentic to be an accident. The zombie gambling scene from “Land of the Dead” is in this film, but instead of a fighting ring, the zombie is being humiliated at a Rave party. Another big scene was a building collapse, which was totally shot and acted out exactly like the one like Michael Bay’s 2005 blunder “The Island”. On the subject of zombies, WHEN DID THIS FILM TURN INTO A ZOMBIE FILM??? There are words about them in the first movie, most noticeably referred to as “The Cranks”, but this film is too PG-13 to represent anything similar to zombies. There’s no violence, no biting, so no payoff. MINOR SPOILER – The zombies are responsible for one death in this movie, so their presence isn’t even important considering the movie revolves around their disease. This series is better than these thefts, and i think that the third film needs more originality if it is going to get over the hump where other Y.A adaptations have failed. It’s not a film I particularly hated, but it’s obviously the black sheep of the two movies. “Maze Runner: Scorch Trials” is a disappointment after such a fresh opening chapter to the series. It’s lack of originality signals trouble for a genre that is streaked in repetition.

5/10