An interesting movie emerges from September’s box-office hell. Time to check it out.

What’s It About? Trapped in an unknown location, Thomas and friends must escape to the outside world by navigating a shape-shifting maze full of dangerous creatures.

STRAIGHT UP: Exciting at times, but lacks staying power. 6.5/10

What I Liked

The maze – The maze is an almost inherently exciting setting, where the possibility of danger literally lurks around every corner.

The Grievers – Legitimately good movie monsters. They’re ugly, scary, and truly dangerous, as they rack up multiple kills nearly every time they appear.

Minho – An ethnic minority character who gets the movie’s best (only?) character arc and survives until the end? Feels revolutionary, man.

What I Didn’t Like

Dylan O’Brien as Thomas – Another generically handsome white-bread YA protagonist. Other characters make frequent mention of how “special” Thomas is, but the screenplay doesn’t back this up – he’s a boring cipher. Katniss from The Hunger Games could kick this guy’s ass.

Kaya Scodelario as Teresa – Token female character, check. Lifeless performance by the actress playing her, double check.

Solving the maze – The maze is supposed to be a hopelessly arcane puzzle, but the solution Thomas finds for escaping it basically boils down to a simple three-step process. This doesn’t make Thomas look like a genius so much as it makes everyone else seem lazy and daft.

They killed the fat kid – Because of course they did.

Ridiculous sci-fi worldbuilding – At the end of the movie, some explanation is provided regarding the purpose of the maze as well as the status of the outside world. The details are so ridiculous and stupid that I almost fell out of my chair laughing. As much as I would like to, I won’t spoil anything here. I will only say that the author of this story does not seem to know how the sun, viruses, or medical research works.

CLOSING THOUGHT: As far as I’m concerned, the only reason this movie (and all the other recent YA adaptations) exists is because the Hunger Games films have been so hugely successful, and copycat studios are dying to get even a small piece of that pie. The problem is that not all YA novels are created equal; The Hunger Games works not because of the audience it’s aimed towards or the genre it occupies, but because it’s a strong narrative with relevant allegories, thematic depth, and three-dimensional characters. The Maze Runner doesn’t have any of that; at worst, it’s even possible to interpret an anti-technology, anti-science message in its finale that feels backwards and harmful here in 2014. I’ll give credit to The Maze Runner for being interesting enough to lure me out to the theater, and I’ll admit that I found it pretty exciting at times – but I won’t even remember it if and when the sequel happens.