RELEASED in October last year, The Maze Runner – the first film based on James Dashner's post-apocalyptic trilogy for young adults – was unfairly dismissed as a testosterone-fuelled clone of The Hunger Games.
Wes Ball's propulsive and refreshingly unsentimental chase through a diabolical labyrinth killed off main characters in a clinical fashion and cleverly negated the need for back stories by burdening the teenage runners with amnesia.
Fragmented memories of the past gradually resurface in this equally entertaining sequel, which veers into grisly territory inhabited by The Walking Dead and World War Z, albeit within the boundaries of a 12A certificate.
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials fills in some of the narrative blanks but always has one eye on the next thrilling action set piece, including a sprint through a topsy-turvy collapsed skyscraper that proves what goes up must come down – at stomach-lurching speed.
The first chapter culminated with Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), Frypan (Dexter Darden) and Winston (Alexander Flores) being airlifted to safety from a facility belonging to the World Catastrophe Killzone Department (WCKD).
The teenagers arrive at a fortified research compound where Janson (Aiden Gillen) and his team care for the runners, keeping them safe from WCKD and its Machiavellian lead physician, Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson).
Thomas learns that the maze runners hold the key to a cure for the Flare contagion, which has ravaged the globe and reduced humanity to flesh-hungry predators known as Cranks.
"There's something in our blood that WCKD wants," Thomas informs his pals.
When Janson fails to provide the answers that Thomas needs to hear, he spearheads a daring escape with a loner called Aris (Jacob Lofland).
The teenagers flee into the sun-scorched wilderness where they come face-to-face with the Cranks and forge an uneasy alliance with a gung-ho girl called Brenda (Rosa Salazar) and her surrogate father (Giancarlo Esposito).
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials unfolds at a brisk pace and fleshes out Scodelario's battle-scarred heroine, who was woefully short-changed in the first film.
O'Brien remains a likeable hero, who is blissfully unaware of the sins of his past, and new characters are introduced and – in some cases – swiftly dispatched as the hard-fought war with WCKD intensifies.
Intriguing questions about sacrifice in a world where death is the only freedom provide the cast with plentiful opportunities to wring out tears.
Director Ball borrows from The Lost World: Jurassic Park for one of his film's nerve-racking crescendos and orchestrates frenetic encounters with the ravenous zombie-like Cranks.
"I think hope is a dangerous thing," counsels one character.
Maybe so, but on this evidence, we have every reason to hope for a humdinger finale, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, scheduled for release in January 2017.
MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS (12A, 131 mins) Action/Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Thriller/Romance. Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Ki Hong Lee, Jacob Lofland, Rosa Salazar, Giancarlo Esposito, Patricia Clarkson, Aiden Gillen, Dexter Darden, Alexander Flores. Director: Wes Ball.
FOUR STARS
