Thankfully sidestepping the soppy romantic elements of its competitors, The Maze Runner is the latest YA novel adaptation/budding franchise that is essentially The Lord Of The Flies with yet another totally improbable USP in its titular maze. The material is extremely thin, but the cast is very earnest (with standouts a natural Thomas Brodie-Sangster and wholly committed lead Dylan O'Brien), the tone is surprisingly and satisfyingly grim for a 12A certificate film that is quite happy to kill off seemingly central characters, and the director creates a handful of well-mounted action sequences. For a low/mid-budget film, the scale and polish is mostly very effective, even if the monstrous Grievers seem like Starship Troopers knock-offs. There is a somewhat perfunctory and unconvincing explanation for the whole thing at the end that mostly serves to set up the inevitable sequel, but in spite of its flaws, this is one of the less bloated and more watchable entries in the YA field of recent times.
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