With lots of loose plot-threads still to be tied up - notably the story of their own personal Judas, Teresa ( Kaya Scodelario) - even an edited version takes two hours to tell, and it’s hard to sustain tension or scares for that long. Admittedly some of the action can’t help but feel familiar: it’s a mission to get into a heavily guarded place, and then get out while occasionally outrunning monsters. This one keeps up the pace but becomes more of a running battle, one so well designed it suggests a much bigger budget than this can possibly have had. Nowlin stripping the narrative to the bone. The first and second films were one long chase scene, with director Wes Ball and screenwriter T.S. So it’s off through the Flare-zombie infested wilderness to the Last City, a WCKD-controlled stronghold that may hold the key to saving the world, if they can get in and out alive. That goes largely to plan, but some of their friends, immune to the Flare plague that has devastated the population, are left still in the hands of the all-powerful WCKD organisation, which is alas not a company dedicated to alco-pops. No time for introductions! All six are engaged in a daring train heist (because you can’t go wrong if you stick close to Fast Five) in order to free the captured Minho (Ki Hong Lee).
You’ll have to gradually piece together that Thomas ( Dylan O’Brien) and his friends Newt ( Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Frypan (Dexter Darden) have survived the Maze, and teamed up with black marketeer Jorge ( Giancarlo Esposito), his ward Brenda (Rosa Salazar) and freedom fighter Vince (Barry Pepper). There isn’t even an opening title card or voiceover to remind you who’s who, what’s what or how we got to this point as we rejoin the action.