LOS ANGELES — Wes Ball’s adaptation of the first book from James Dashner’s “Maze Runner” young adult novels, about a group of teens consigned to a mysterious labyrinth, yielded a feature that proved it could compete for the same audience as the “Hunger Games” and “Divergent” series. The second installment, which reveals some of the reasons behind the teens’ imprisonment, lacks a similar sense of originality and urgency, undercut by overly familiar characterizations and dilatory pacing.
The conclusion of 2014’s “The Maze Runner” revealed that the teenagers known as “Gladers” were confined to their maze by the World Catastrophe Killzone Department (WCKD), a quasi-governmental agency tasked with eradicating a viral plague that has killed off much of the world’s population and transformed many survivors into homicidal, zombielike “Cranks.” Confronting WCKD and exposing its oppressive policies becomes the teens’ primary mission in “The Scorch Trials,” but this imperative increasingly diverges from the realm of speculative fiction that forms the basis of the book series in favor of an action-adventure format.
Now free of their maze after suffering several significant casualties, the Gladers are confronted by the widespread breakdown of social order following a series of unprecedented solar events that have overheated the Earth’s surface critically and decimated many terrestrial ecosystems. After unidentified soldiers evacuate them to an ominous underground paramilitary facility, the teens discover that their group was only one of several subjected to the mysterious maze trials. Janson (Aidan Gillen), who appears to run the operation, separates the Gladers for medical exams and debriefings, aggressively interrogating Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) and whisking Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) away to an unknown location. Befriending young loner Aris (Jacob Lofland), an escapee from a different maze, Thomas discovers that the facility is actually a cover for WCKD and that Janson is working for WCKD’s dreaded director of operations, Dr. Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson), conducting intrusive medical procedures on the maze survivors.
