Maze Runner Book vs Maze Runner Movie

On September 19th, 2014 The Maze Runner movie first hit theatres. There are four books in the series. There is the original trilogy of The Maze Runner, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure. And then there is a fourt book written which is a prequel, called The Kill Order.

You can read more details about the Maze Runner books here.

I’ve read The Maze Runner – first book in the series – already, and like I did with Divergent, I was planning on doing a “Maze Runner Book vs Maze Runner Movie” article. However I ended up going to the movies with my wife, my son and my sons friend.

My wife hasn’t read the book, and my son and his friend are both 11 year olds – practically the “young adult” genre that this books target audience is written for. So I felt it would be a lot more interesting to provide the reviews from the 3 different perspectives.

Maze Runner Movie Review: I Read The Book First

I didn’t love the book when I read it – it wasn’t like Divergent or Hunger Games where I just couldn’t put it down. There were a lot of frustrations in it like when Thomas is trying to find out what is going on and is repeatedly told “I can’t tell you that right now” or similar. It really felt like a crutch. It was still an enjoyable read, but it took me a lot longer to read it than other books of this genre.

The most notable thing for me about the movie was how different it was from the book. Unlike Divergent and the Hunger Games where they stayed true to the majority of the book, there was a lot of things missing from the movie that were in the book. While it still did credit to the book and the main parts were the same, there were still some key plot points missing – like in the movie, Thomas and Teresa can’t communicate with each other telepathically. This was a major part of the book that was missing from the movie.

There was a LOT missing I felt – the pacing felt really different too. I never felt like that during Hunger Games or Divergent but it was notable here.

I enjoyed the movie – but I am glad I read the book first. I felt the book was a lot more intense at describing the maze for example and there was a lot of key character development. Things like figuring out how the maze works for example. The movie was good, but I much preferred the book and how much more in-depth it was. The grievers I felt were a LOT freakier and scarier in the book. Here they just felt like your typical movie monster.

Also it should go without saying but it’s disappointing how inconclusive the ending was in both the book and the movie. Without spoiling anything – the ending is much like Catching Fire, where it’s basically “yep – the story continues in the next movie”.

Maze Runner Movie Review: My Wife Hasn’t Read The Book

My wife really enjoyed the movie. And the more she thought about it, the more she enjoyed it. When we came out of the movie she had that “just saw a good movie” vibe, but when home she immediately watched the trailer of it and you could tell she would have went back to see it again in a heart beat.

One thing that was interesting was she came out of it wanting to read the books. Obviously the ending where the story is basically “to be continued” would inspire that – but when she heard that the telepathic communications were in the book she thought that would be very interesting, and felt it made it different enough that it’s inspired her to read the series from the beginning.

If you haven’t read the book, from talking to others at the theatre as well – you’ll also really enjoy the movie.

She also really enjoyed quite a few scares throughout the movie – although I didn’t enjoy them as much, as she knocked my popcorn over during one of the scares!

Maze Runner Movie Review: From a Young Adults Perspective

This was the interesting one. Watching the movie, I didn’t think the kids would like it enough. Boy was I wrong.

Thomas was their hero – that’s all they talked about when we left the theatre. Then my son immediately ran to my car and jumped up on the hood “just like Thomas would do”. They then proceeded to talk the whole way home about it and the general consensus was “Thomas is awesome”.

So that was something cool to see. Nice to see them have a “hero” in a movie – obviously they’re both boys, and they could relate more to Thomas than a Katniss or a Tris so that’s pretty cool.

Overall Review:

Overall – Maze Runner is great for the whole family, and whether you have read the books or not you will enjoy it. You can also go see the movie first – the books are different enough that you will read the books and get so much more out of it as well.

If you have young boys be sure to take them to this. They will thoroughly enjoy it and the highlight for me is a day later, watching my son talk about how great Thomas was.