Movie Reviews: Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials & The Martian

It's getting harder to find time to do my hobbies these days.

I still haven't finished reading The Light Between Oceans. I haven't been watching the second season of How to Get Away with Murder. I haven't been posting my writings here... My weekdays are just sooo exhausting because there are sooo many things to do at school. The terrible traffic in Jakarta makes it even worse; it takes hours for me to reach my office from my house and vice versa. At the end of every day, I'm always super exhausted. I just have no strength to do anything. Thankfully, I manage to keep my weekends free from work-related thingy, so I can have some time to rest and do my hobbies, like today.

Today I want to write about the two movies that I saw recently: Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials and The Martian. Here are my thoughts on those two films.

MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS

This movie is adapted from James Dashner's novel, The Scorch Trials (read my review of it here) and the sequel to last year's The Maze Runner. As I wrote in my review of the book, the one thing that I don't like about it is how Thomas seems to obey WICKED. Luckily, the director of the movie adaptation, Wes Ball, seems to agree with me. He alters one part of the story (SPOILER ALERT! Thomas and his friends escape from the WICKED facility and go out to The Scorch instead of going to The Scorch because Janson tells them to do so) in the movie, which changes everything. This change keeps the burning spirit to reach freedom there. I like this a lot.

Top: Minho (Kihong Lee), Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) & Newt (Thomas Sangster)
Bottom: Harriet (Nathalie Emmanuel), Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) & Brenda (Rosa Salazar)

Despite the major change that I mentioned above, there are sooo many differences between the book and the movie. Some fans might not like it, but I don't mind. To be honest, I like the story of the movie more haha. The action sequences are just as tense as the ones in the first movie. I think the Cranks chase scenes are the best ones; those scenes made me hold my breath for a long time! I love the settings too; they are grander than the ones in The Maze Runner. I miss The Glade, though. I just love the concept of The Glade haha. And I love the cast too, of course! Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scoelario, Thomas Sangster, Kihong Lee, Jacob Lofland, Rosa Salazar, Nathalie Emmanuel etc give such enjoyable performances.

Rating : 3,5/5

THE MARTIAN

The next movie is the one that I saw yesterday: The Martian. The movie is about a botanist named Mark Watney (Matt Damon) who is left alone in Mars because his crew thinks he is killed when an unexpected storm hits them during their expedition in the red planet. This movie is directed by Ridley Scott and full of great actors such as Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels etc.

The Martian is full of great actors, but Matt Damon is definitely the shining star in the movie

When I first read the synopsis of the film, I thought The Martian was going to be very emotional and full of dramatic death scenes like other astronaut movies, such as Interstellar and Armageddon. But it turns out that it is not like that at all. The Martian is surprisingly funny and enjoyable. Matt Damon's Watney is completely alone in Mars and has no one to talk to except his webcam, but he delivers so many hilarious monologues. I laughed a lot when I saw the movie yesterday.

Mark Watney is definitely the most interesting character in The Martian. I expected him to weep and get totally depressed in that planet because, dude, he is left alone in Mars! But he does not. Even when he first realizes that he is left alone in the red planet, he doesn't get panicked. Instead, he keeps thinking, uses his knowledge and solves the problems that come to him. I think this is a great approach and it makes The Martian different from other astronaut films. This also shows to us that the ones that matter are not the problems, but the way we choose to see and deal with them. Matt Damon definitely stands out in this movie. I love Jessica Chastain's and Kate Mara's characters too, though. Strong, brave and smart female characters always make me proud haha.

Rating : 4/5

Book Review : The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

I finally finished reading The Scorch Trials! I spent around two or three weeks reading it. I used to be a pretty fast reader but work has made me a very slow one...

So The Scorch Trials is the second book in James Dashner's The Maze Runner series. The book starts exactly after the ending of the first book, The Maze Runner. This means that I can't say anything about this book without giving spoilers about the ending of The Maze Runner. So if you haven't read the first book, or seen the movie adaptation that was released last month, and don't want to ruin the fun by getting some spoilers, please stop reading.

After escaping from the Maze, Thomas and his fellow Gladers can finally be relieved and feel safe. However, it doesn't last long. The second phase of the mysterious trials begins unexpectedly. Teresa, the only girl among the Gladers who is also Thomas's closest friend, is taken away by WICKED and is replaced by a boy named Aris. Then, an odd man appears with odd instructions about the second phase of the trials: The Scorch Trials. Thomas, Minho, Newt and the rest of the Gladers must face the harshness of a scorched land in order to survive. In this phase, they don't have to run in the Maze or fight the Grievers. They have to fight something worse: extreme nature, zombie-like creatures, fellow humans with their own agendas and, the hardest one, betrayals.

The book cover

The book shocked me by putting the characters in a completely different situation. In the first book, the most frustrating thing is the isolation and the fact that the Gladers have no idea what's actually happening to them. In The Scorch Trials, they're sent into an open-space with thousands of possibilities: they could get killed by a wild storm or zombies or other people who are forced to kill them to survive. I like this because it makes things very unexpected and surprising. There is a surprise at the end of every chapter in the book, which made it so hard for me to put this book down. Very, very tense. I don't know the correct English word to describe it, but the best Indonesian word to describe this book is "seru".

What I don't like about this book is the way Thomas reacts to the things that happen around him. In the first book, he is so eager to get out from the Glade and free himself from whoever it is who puts him there. He is very, very eager to break free and he fights so hard to achieve freedom. In this book, he knows that he is used as an object in WICKED's experiments. I expected that it would anger him even more, would make him more eager to fight back. I don't mean to compare this saga with The Hunger Games, but I expected Thomas to do something like what Katniss does in Catching Fire (destroying the arena of the Games at the end). But it turns out that he doesn't. It turns out that he tends to just do whatever he thinks WICKED wants him to do. He finally shows this eagerness near the end of the book, but, still, I don't feel the burning spirit to reach freedom that I felt when I was reading The Maze Runner. When I was reading Scorch Trials, I kept yelling in my head, "Fight, Thomas! Fight!!!"

Despite Thomas's weakening spirit that I don't like, I like how my feelings about some of the characters get twisted in this book. I used to like and trust Teresa, but the way I see her is completely turned around in this book. I've always loved Minho and I still love him here. He is a bit more sarcastic and rude in this one, but it was so uncomfortable when I had to read some parts where Minho is separated from Thomas. I miss Minho sooo much when I read those parts. I like Newt more than before now; I like how he keeps the togetherness in the group. Brenda, the new girl, is also a fun character.

My favorite characters portrayed by the talented actors: Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden, Kaya Scodelario, Dylan O'Brien, Will Poulter and Thomas Sangster

So, I enjoyed reading The Scorch Trials, but I still love the spirit of The Maze Runner more. I'm currently reading the third book now, The Death Cure. Hopefully, the final book would be satisfying. I also hope that the movie adaptation, which is coming in 2015, would be good. I really enjoyed the movie adaptation of the first book.

Rating : 3/5