The Maze Runner

It’s pretty easy to solve The Maze Runner, a big-budget action-adventure saga that more closely resembles a television pilot.

The latest combatant in the crowded marketplace for cinematic adaptations of young-adult science-fiction novels makes no secret about its ambition to launch another genre franchise. In fact, it practically demands a follow-up by taking the notion of a cliffhanger ending to a new level. If you want to find out what really happens, you’ll have to wait for the obligatory sequel.

The frustrating conclusion detracts from a film that otherwise features some fresh twists on familiar post-apocalyptic themes involving precocious teenagers fighting for survival against a system of oppression and corruption. If that sounds familiar, it probably won’t matter to the book’s legions of fans.

The story is told through the eyes of Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) who wakes up surrounded by other teenage boys as part of a utopian society at the center of a giant structure he later learns is a maze. None of the boys knows how they got there or why. Even worse, nobody knows a way out.

However, they’re able to survive using provisions that are regularly dropped off, and because of well-defined roles and a set of rules to which they strictly adhere. But when Thomas threatens to challenge the status quo, things head into Lord of the Flies territory.

For example, shortly after arriving, Thomas is told he should never, ever, enter the maze. Later, he’s warned that nobody has ever survived a night behind the walls because of the nocturnal creatures that live there. What do you think is going to happen?

That predictability aside, rookie director Wes Ball stages a handful of exciting action sequences, especially those inside the maze, which convey the appropriate level of claustrophobic tension without resorting to an overreliance on special effects. Likewise, the cosmopolitan cast of mostly fresh faces is charming enough, with O’Brien making a charismatic hero.

The film elects to withhold the answers to many of its key questions about the characters and their plight to maintain a sense of mystery. That’s fine in theory, but forcing moviegoers to wait until the next installment to this degree isn’t a valid excuse.

The Maze Runner may ultimately be a better film when examined in the context of its potential successors, but taken on its own, it’s a puzzling tease.

Rated PG-13, 113 minutes.