Book series published date: October 6th, 2009

Author: James Dashner

Movie release date: September 19, 2014

Director: Wes Ball

The Pitch: Based on James Dashner’s first novel of a series, The Maze Runner is a science-fiction dystopian action thriller film, starring Dylan O’Brien as Thomas, Kaya Scodelario as Teresa, Thomas Brodie Sangster as Newt, Ki Hong Lee as Minho, Will Poulter as Gally and Blake Cooper as Chuck. It is rated PG-13 and is an hour and 53 minutes long. The Maze Runner is playing in all movie theaters. Thomas (O’Brein) is a young teenage boy who, one day, mysteriously finds himself in “the Glade”, unable to remember anything. Along with the other boys (aka Gladers) who live in “the Glade” and a strange girl named Teresa (Scodelario) who seems to recognize him from the past, Thomas ventures out into the dangerous Maze. The Maze is filled with monsters called Grievers and all sorts of unexpected obstacles; the Gladers must fight through all this if they are to escape this place and find their way back home. On the way, Thomas struggles to regain his memories because they might just hold the answer to what his true purpose is for coming to “the Glade.” I have read the entire Maze Runner series and have enjoyed every bit of the movie, but one thing that kind of bothered me was the fact that the movie left out a lot important information from the book. This confused me in some parts of the movie because it completely skipped an entire scene that was supposed to be in the story. While this movie contains great CGI effects and awesome storyline and many heart racing moments, there aren’t many humorous scenes. But aside from that, I really liked their choice of actors and actress for the Maze Runner. Everybody truly brought the scenes from the novel to life with their great acting, especially Thomas Brodie Sangster. This movie is  mainly for young adults (12-up), so I wouldn’t recommend this movie to little children because it contains some frightening scenes and strong language. But other than that, I love this movie, and I would buy it the moment it hits stores.

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars