Mazerunner: Lord of the Flies meet Lost

I did not plan to watch Mazerunner in the first place. Lyn read the trilogy and was disappointed with how the story end. Then again, with my free TGV ticket expiring soon, I have not many choices left for free list. So, once again, I headed for the young adult dystopian story. Boy, it was a nice surprise.

Mazerunner runs exactly like Lord of the Flies. Thomas wakes up one day in a elevator and was transported to a small village, The Glade, which is trapped in the middle of a large maze with a village of young boys. Apparently, in a fixed interval, the elevator will send ample supply for survival, with a young man, sedated, and wiped memory. The only way out seems to be through the maze. However, it is not as simple as it is. The entrance is open every morning and close before nightfall. Those who did not make it back to the village will be prey to certain creatures, Grievers, which looks like cyborg spiders. To complicated matters, the maze change its path every night. With the arrival of Thomas, things seems to change, and subsequently the elevator sends a girl instead.There are those who do not like Thomas pro-active approach, and oppose the changes while Thomas was anxious to look for an exit through the maze. There is where it mirrors the Lord of the Flies, with the boys divided into clans and reach the inevitable separation. With more questions than answer, and each turn of the maze presented more questions; it actually felt like watching Lost, the series. Each answer will lead to more questions and seems to weaved into a bigger sinister story.

Forget about the acting, it is not the star of the show. True enough, the young actors manage to hold their fort, but it was the script, and story that drive the show. The action is bit of let down though, the director opted for the handheld haphazard style of action sequence which blurs the whole frame. The few clearly exciting scenes were when the boys were running in the maze while the maze was changing.. akin to Prince of Persia (the game, not the pathetic movie). The built up was good, though at times, were bit slow in the beginning. However, the pseudo explanation given at the end of the movie made me felt short-changed. Somehow, it was bit disappoiting as well. And the ending scenes gave the whole direction of the story away... it is going to be another dystopian story.

ratings: 3 poink~!
comments: with so may adaptation of young adult novels, this seems to be on the top, along with The Hunger Games. I just hope it would not tank later.

Lucy: philosophical super-heroine adventure

This is a super-hero movie. And the super-heroine is way cooler than Batman, more powerful than Superman, and even all the X-Men and Avengers combine could not defeat her. And in one of the scene, she even imitate Venom, but not to destroy nor kill but to build a computer. What? She is that powerful? Yup.


Lucy can be as simple or as complex one made it to be. The basic story is so simple, she began as a drug mule. Following a mishap whereby the luggage in a abdomen was leaked, she began to develop super power following the overdose. Wow. This is the interesting way to gain super power. Not being vengeful following death of family, nor being born that way, nor being bitten by a radioactive insect, not wearing high tech armour, not even being a product of a science experiment. Just a simple overdose of experimental illicit substance. (bad message to people out there, in real life, people die from overdose. they DO NOT become powerful being) Following that, she gain access to more extensive part of the brain, of course, eventually 100%. In that process, she gain power of telekinesis, manipulate electrical items, fast reflex, and evetually power over time and space. Basically she became God-like. Of course throw in the Korean mafia who is hot on her heels to retrieve the original package which she is suppose to deliver. And basically that summarize the whole movie.


Scarlett Johansson plays the title character well enough. The whole movie is about her, and most of the screen time is with her in it. She looks perplexed and ambivalent most of her time up until the climax of the show. She would not earn a Oscar from this, but her performance is well enough. I still like her as Black Widow though. The rest are just accessories. Morgan Freeman plays a professor trying to guide Lucy while Choi Min-Sik plays the main bad guy. Too few chance for them to shine.

As a super hero movie, Lucy fails terribly. The main baddie is not powerful being trying to take over the world, but just some gangster, who look powerless in most scene. Even with all her power, and being not hesitant to kill in the movie, she has to let the villain live when she could have just kill him. That would save us lots of time. The action sequence is average, though the car chase sequence is one of the better ones. The main climax fight is a disappointment where by it is just gangster fight with lots and lots of guns. But, Lucy is not our usual super hero movie. This is a thinking movie. Even philosophical. So much so that I bet not many people understand the whole show. Before going into the cinema, a friend actually told me about the show. "it is not a bad movie...." and he began to narrate the whole movie. And after watching Lucy myself, I found the narration was all wrong. There are so many deep question roaming about. The existential theories. The concept of time in existence. The purpose of being. I would not even try to explain about it here, but do prepare to think while watching this show.



Overall, it was, as my friend put it, an average movie. Despite the deep meaning to the show, it did not make the impact I hope it did. I will still probably forget the movie a month later, but for a weekend without many other choice, this probably still above the rest.


ratings: 2 half poink!
comments: prepare to use more than 15% of our brain in this short 1 half hour.