And so ends The Maze Runner series, a series that began rather lackluster, had an unexpectedly delightful middle installment and ended on what I consider a satisfactory finale. May I add how much I appreciate Maze Runner: The Death Cure not being separated into two parts like every other Young Adult franchise. Director Wes Ball has come a long way since the first installment. He’s figured out how to effectively integrate comedic relief and character interactions into the story—and while The Death Cure is not the same adrenaline-pumping, fast-paced thrill ride as The Scorch Trials, it certainly contains enough engaging entertainment to deliver without disappointment.
The Death Cure starts off with a bang as protagonist Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and company embark on a daring train robbery. Only this robbery isn’t for money, it’s for immune teenagers captured by the worst named cooperation trying to appear as the good guys, WCKD. Alongside Thomas is The Right Arm’s resistance leader Vince (Barry Pepper), fellow Maze Runner captees Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Frypan (Dexter Darden), and best characters in the series Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito) and Brenda (Rosa Salazar). The ragtag group is able to rescue a good number of teens yet miss Thomas’ good friend Minho (Ki Hong Lee). Distraught about unsuccessfully rescuing his friend, Thomas hatches another plan to rescue Minho from WCKD’s main base, The Last City—a huge, thriving metropolis surrounded by a giant wall. Vince reasonably points out how the plan is a suicide mission, but unlike last time he forgoes Thomas' idea to focus on getting the many rescued teens to safety. Thomas, unable to leave a comrade behind, sneaks out at night to rescue Minho himself. Frypan and Newt (whose outfit looks suspiciously like Leon Kennedy’s in Resident Evil 4) anticipate such and join Thomas, with Brenda and Jorge soon following behind.
If there’s one consistent praise I can give to all three films, it’s that they effectively establish a straightforward goal for the protagonist: escape a maze, find a safe zone, rescue a friend. The Death Cure is the best of the three with handling grey morality. While Thomas and co. desire to save a single person, WCKD‘s leader Ava (Patricia Clarkson) and double-crosser Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) desperately continue searching for a cure to save millions through the sacrifice of a few. This is the most interesting Teresa’s ever been in the series, or, more specifically, the first time she’s ever been interesting. Teresa truly believes WCKD’s intentions to be for the best, and, with absolute determination, desperately continues seeking a cure even as everything around her falls apart. It’s also the first time Teresa and Thomas have had a genuinely engaging dynamic—pitted on opposite ends, both believing they’re in the right yet still harboring deep affection for each other. Ava’s true colors are revealed to have been genuine all along. Ava truly is a well-intentioned extremist, believing everything she does is for the greater good. She’s neither sadistic, greedy, nor spiteful, and when it looks as if a cure cannot be made, she graciously accepts defeat and opts to allow the immune teenagers a chance to start their own world rather than further torture them for a lost cause.
The Death Cure does have a straightforward villain, however, in Ava’s righthand man Janson (Aidan Gillen)—who fulfills his role as a devious schemer planning on using a cure for nefarious purposes. While Janson is a fairly generic bad guy, Gillen certainly makes the character entertaining—having a cocky smile in almost every scene, giving him an amusing smugness. After two films, a chemical relationship has finally been made between Newt, Minho, and Thomas—going from almost feeling like a genuine bond to having an effectively touching friendship between the three. Thomas, unfortunately, has traded some of his previous films's shrewdness for an increase in recklessness, though he still gets a couple shining moments here. Ultimately, Thomas ends up being a middle-of-the-road protagonist for the series. There’s never anything awful or excessively annoying about Thomas, but—aside from several noteworthy moments of ingenuity—he never stands out as anything remarkable…he never stands out. Note such emphasis, for while Thomas himself never gained my true interest, his relationship with a certain female did.
The Death Cure continues The Scorch Trials’ two genuine bonds between Jorge and Brenda’s father-daughter relationship and Brenda and Thomas’ possibly romantic relationship. MAJOR SPOILERS BEGIN: I’ll shamefully admit to being happy Teresa died, not because I dislike her—if anything, The Death Cure finally made me appreciate her character—but because I really ship Thomas and Brenda. I know, I should be better than that, but not only is Thomas and Brenda’s relationship the first I genuinely cared about in the series—the characters work off each other very effectively—It’s also the first time in forever I got invested in shipping two characters in a film series. Hell, one of the reasons I was genuinely excited to see The Death Cure was for this relationship—and while they never canonically get together here, with Teresa dead I can, at least, create my own headcanon that they form a relationship in the future.
Gally (Will Poulter) makes a completely unexpected return, though I’m still confused over how he survived both infection and a spear to the chest (feels like it’s one of those book-to-film, omitted in adaptation aspects). Nonetheless, I appreciate the reverse character derailment Gally experiences as he’s turned back into a brutal, yet sensible ally. Frypan…is really just there as extra help. It’s sad that after three films, Frypan is the only supporting character to not make any impact at all—which showed when he, Thomas and Newt leave for the rescue mission and I couldn’t remember who the character was. MAJOR SPOILERS END
With The Death Cure, comedic relief has finally found a stable place within The Maze Runner film series. While it’s not one of the film’s highlight aspects, there is enough humor to avoid the first film’s excessive bleakness (which is a bit ironic since The Death Cure contains the series’s most somber moments). Gags include Newt rolling up his car window after Thomas tells Frypan to “drive slowly” past some Cranks, Thomas telling the two a ten-story jump is “doable”, and the out-of-service sigh popping up after their rescue bus drops hundreds of feet to the ground.
The Death Cure’s action is not without its head-slapping moments, such as how all the baddies continuously stare at their inevitable defeat (such as a grenade thrown at their feet), rather than acting to prevent it, or actually fire their non-lethal Taser guns rather than telling the good guys to put their hands up every, single, time! Yet alongside its bad action tropes, The Death Cure counters with a greater supply of good action tropes. From the epic opening where Brenda and Jorge are chased by a lazar-firing aircraft (and defeat it), to the cool infiltration scene of WCKD’s headquarters, to their engaging escape in the modernized Last City's refreshing setting. The finale even contains an all-out war between the Cranks and WCKD.
The Death Cure may not be as delightfully energetic as The Scorch Trials, but it’s a big improvement over The Maze Runner and a solid way to end the series. The Maze Runner has had its ups and downs, but unlike the Divergent series—which got consistently worse with each installment—this series has drastically improved and learned over its course. I never would have expected such when I began, but The Maze Runner has become my third favorite Young Adult series behind The Hunger Games and the latter half of Harry Potter. Now I finally have a series to fit my tier 2 (good-very good) Young Adult ranking scale.