After having escaped the Maze, the Gladers now face a new set of challenges, it’s out of the frying pan and into the inferno for our young adventurers in this epic quest. Now on the open roads of a desolate landscape filled with unimaginable obstacles, both human and bestial, with WCKD hot on the trail and humanity at the end of its tether our heroes must do whatever they can to survive. Beyond survival they have a deep philosophical question of a Darwinian nature to deal with, the likes of which will shake the very nature of what it means to be human and the future of the species as a whole.

The film also has a great cast consisting of:

Dylan O’Brien as Thomas

Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Newt

Ki Hong Lee as Min Ho

Kaya Scodelario as Teresa Agnes

Rosa Salazar as Brenda

Jacob Lofland as Aris Jones

Giancarlo Esposito as Jorge

Aidan Gillen as Janson

Dexter Darden as Frypan

Alexander Flores as Winston

Barry Pepper as Vince

Lili Taylor as Mary Cooper

Alan Tudyk as Marcus

Patricia Clarkson as Ava Paige

Nathalie Emmanuel as Harriet

Katherine McNamara as Sonya

With several of the original cast coming back it was nice that the film’s producers wanted to add more characters in, ones who added more variation to the cast.

In the film you have the always brilliant Giancarlo Esposito in the role of Jorge and a Nerdgeist favorite Rosa Salazar as Brenda (check out our interview with her at SXSW HERE), They where great additions to the main group bringing in a little more worldly experience to the naive survivors. Though Scorch Trials did have some nice antagonists too with a brief appearance of Alan Tudyk playing just plain crazy and Aidan Gillen as the supposedly trustworthy savior from the beginning of the film, come on kids haven’t you watched Game Of Thrones, YOU NEVER TRUST LITTLE FINGER !

Where the first film was set in the relative safety of the glade this one is open in the big bad world, its vicious brutal and deadly but some of the shots where quite artistic and beautiful. It helped set the tone of the film and the desolation of the world we have wrought. There is something about a completely deserted city with collapsed buildings half filled with sand that would just make you stand back in awe and feel a little terrified.

The scope and scale of this film is far greater than its predecessor creating a product that far out strips its predecessor. The Maze Runner series is unfortunate in that it is seen as a second tier film compared to something like the Hunger Games but it’s a great and underrated franchise. As post apocalyptic films go this one is a little different and it’s incredibly entertaining.