Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Movie Review

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

Rent Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials on Amazon Video (paid link) // Buy the book (paid link) 
Written by: T.S. Nowlin (screenplay), James Dashner (novel) 
Directed by: Wes Ball
Starring: Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Barry Pepper, Aidan Gillen
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
They've escaped the maze and are now faced with a desolate landscape, dangerous people, and zombies.

Verdict
The first movie had a great first half and a terrible second half. This sequel picks up at the terrible part and manages to be even worse. It picks the worst tropes and puts them into one scattered movie. The movie believes that if crams enough stuff into the plot, you won't notice how bad it is.
Skip it.

Review
I liked the The Mazer Runner (2014), it had a great opening, but it fell apart half way through.

I hoped The Scorch Trials could recapture some of that magic, but it doesn't. It seemes like it might be a retread of the first with a bigger maze. The introduction is all over the place. It's got kids, zombies, the military, sci-fi experiments, a mad scientist, a para-military group, and a post apocalypse desert. The entire setup is underwhelming and cliche. I guess the plan was to create one good movie and hope people would blindly watch the sequels. It worked! If I was a smarter person, I would have stopped watching this after thirty minutes.

The Scorch Trials - Hiding how bad it is by adding way too many plot elements.

This is atrocious. Issues include pacing, characters, and plot. My illusions of only being a bad remake were dashed when it went full zombie. What is this movie? Nowlin is the main writer for this, but it's apparent he wasn't the main writer for the first movie. That or he had little regard for this film. This movie also underscores how a script can make a director look good or bad.

The kids escape the maze and are saved but realize scientists are using them for scientific experiments to find a cure. Of course Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) must escape. He encounters a small camp with zombie guard dogs, a dilapidated city, and later a Barry Pepper led militia.

Is the book this bad? Per wikipedia, the book is quite a bit different with the potential to be better than this movie.
This movie combines the waning popularity of zombies and young adult books to horrible effect. Many scenes in this movie have been seen before and done better, like when Thomas's companion is standing on a window pane that is slowly cracking. There is also a hallucination sequence notable for how bad it is. This movie continually finds a way to lower the bar, actively giving you reasons to not like it.