She could have an army of psycho girl ninjas hiding in that shack of hers.

Alas, we did not that quote or a lot of the humor the book had. To be honest I barely remember the second book because, well, it wasn’t my favorite (I remember the third even less and they’re the most recent two in the series I’ve read!) But the characters had personality and we did see some more this time around, but not the way most people want to see them.

If you are a fan of/have read the book you’ll see some similarities, but for the most part, it directs off. For me it wasn’t a big deal because like I said, I wasn’t a big fan, still, it would have been nice to see some things in there. An example is how they get into the scorch the first place or the big disease this whole problem is centered around.

It’s great to see the characters have chemistry. I know the actors are friends and it resonates on-screen. You believe they’ve been through the wringer together and have gotten closer because of that.

The length though, it’s pretty long. I even checked my phone at one point to see how much longer I had. I know they want to get major book parts in there to lead up to the last movie, but if they stuck to the source material I doubt it would’ve turned out to be almost 2 1/2 hours.

There’s this thing I like to call, “sacrificial putting themselves out there,” that happened a lot. Oh my god, did this happen a lot. Say the group is being chased by someone or attacked. They’re trying to get out of the building or area so one person decides to put themselves out there and defend them. It happened more than once. In the end, they end up getting hurt/taken. You almost know something bad is going to happen to them since it happened plenty of times before.

The side characters got a little more screen time thanks to so many first movie characters dying off, but new ones were added only for us to sort of forget about them for a while (I’m talking about you Frypan.) Two big characters from the book were portrayed well and their relationship was great, but there’s a big twist with them in the book that never happened in the movie that I was a little bummed out about.

In the end, I thought it was pretty good. I’m sort of half and half about it. Oh speaking of ending, this one was a little disappointing. Something big happened only for the story to slow down and just end there. It was also drastically changed from the book and I’m not sure where they’re going to go from here. But yeah, it was good, not the best, the first one was better (I say that about the book too) but I’ll definitely be seeing the last one.

*moving onto spoilers*

Now I want to talk about specific parts and changes from the book. The first being the scorch “trials.” In the book, the group goes through the scorch because they had no other choice. It was another trial by Wicked and they had to finish it because, at that point, they didn’t know most of them were immune to the flare. In the movie, they escape and are already told they’re immune. What I liked in the book was even when they thought they were out of Wicked’s hands, they always came right back in. Brenda and Jorge being a big example.

I wasn’t sure what they planned on doing with Thomas and Teresa’s relationship, but where the hell did this romance come from? Again in the book, it was already there in the first one, but they left it out of the movie. So now that Thomas, I don’t know has a thing for her, it seems like it came out of nowhere. He kisses Brenda and pictures, Teresa? No time passed between the two movies so they didn’t have time to grow closer. Seriously, where did that come from?

Okay, THIS bothered me. When the group escaped Wicked and were hiding in the shelter this kid was with them. I had never seen him before, his name was never said, but he was there! And then he’s gone!

What…where did this kid come from and what was his point? And where did he go?

Other than this random child I liked everyone’s character. Brenda and Jorge were great and I loved their chemistry. You know they love each other. Sometimes Jorge had that flare he had in the book, I only wish his entrance was just as dramatic (didn’t he freaking flip off a ledge or something.) Brenda’s strong and doesn’t want to put up with Thomas’s bullshit. I liked them.

But then they had Brenda catch the flare. The flare…I don’t freaking get. In the book people either have or they don’t and over time the flare infects their brain. In the movie, I don’t know you get a cut and then it happens. How big does the wound have to be? What if you get a paper cut? Will the flare infect you?

At least the cranks looked cool. They really did. There were some with their eyes gouged out and the ones that were almost growing into the underground wall with roots covering them. Oh, and they were fast. Like when Thomas and Brenda are climbing up all these steep rocks a crank had one freaking arm and was still keeping up with them. Considering how long they were stuck to the wall it seemed unlikely they would be that fast, but whatever. It was a pretty good chase scene.

The club part…yeah I didn’t really like it in the book and didn’t like it in the movie either. It seemed pointless to me. Thomas had some hallucinations, Newt was a crank….

THE FORESHADOWING OF NEWT

Winston has the flare and wants to kill himself. Who gives him the gun? Newt.

Thomas is hallucinating in the club. He sees Winston as a crank and only one other person. Who is it? Newt.

That is probably the only thing I remember from the third book, Newt’s death and man those two parts really stood out to me as, “hey, it’s ironic because he’ll be dead in the next one.” I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I’m just salty about his death because he’s my favorite character (book and movie.)

I love that music at the end setting up for the last movie, I’m pretty sure they used it in the first movie before Gally showed up, which made me think something would happen like that at the end of this one. Nope. Thomas just kind of has a derp face and that’s it. The ending was pretty anticlimactic. Yeah, there was that fight with Wicked but after that, it slowed down and that was it.

Like I said, I have mixed feelings. It was good, the cranks looked good, the characters are more likable than other movies, and it makes you want to see the next movie. On the other hand, there were a lot of changes from the book that would probably make more sense if they were left in and it was pretty damn long. However, I’d probably watch it again and I am looking forward to the last one.