Nearly a decade after its release, and Hollywood is still subjecting us to the aftershocks of the Young Adult fiction craze that Twilight left us with. Some might blame Harry Potter for starting the trend, but they can go to hell. With these dystopian adventure tales of teenagers fighting old people in tall buildings, you can still occasionally be pleasantly surprised. Enter, The Death Cure. . .

In a future, a solar flare has scorched most of the Earth making it uninhabitable, leaving a planet with too many people and too few resources. In an attempt to handle over-population, scientists create a virus, The Flare, to quickly wipe out a large part of the world leaving more than enough resources for the remaining few. Unexpectedly, many infected become cannibalistic creatures, Cranks. The only immune, Thomas included, are rounded up in an attempt to create an antivirus to save humanity as it brinks on extinction. Death Cure follows Thomas and his fellow Maze Runners as they try to rescue the survivors from WKCD, an organization combating the virus, who’ve been transporting the last remaining kids to Earth’s last remaining city.

“You’re so close to the truth. Don’t you want to know why this all happened?”

The Maze Runner series is much better than it has to be, as a movie based on a young adult novel. With solid entries and storylines throughout this series, Maze Runner avoids the issues than many of these young adult movies are plagued with; like hammy acting, sub-par dialogue, and unnecessary romantic subplots. We only see a few new faces turn up, with director Wes Ball’s snipers focus keeping us trained on what’s important; closing the story without allowing new threads to open all over the place.

The greatest thing about these films is that the writers are unafraid to show the darkness in each of us. Even at the brink of their destruction, WKCD is more than willing to sacrifice other survivors as well as countless children, the last of the immune, and humanity’s only real chance at a future. Now, their motivations do fall apart just a bit under scrutiny. In a world of cannibalistic monsters, with very few survivors, WCKD still subjects us to a half-assed silly political message about favoring the 1% over the unwashed masses. It’s an old and tired theme, and a bit out of place in this post-apocalyptic world.

“Kill me. If you’ve ever been my friend, kill me!”

Now lets talk some low points. The visuals are uninspired and unfortunately bland throughout. The villains are weak and cliche, and a couple deaths can be seen a mile away. However, these issues don’t take away from the entertaining storyline Death Cure delivers.

Maze Runner: The Death Cure is a solid end to an entertaining series. It retains its great acting from a solid young cast, disciplined storytelling, and manages a satisfying conclusion. And as a viewer who has seen far too many YA sagas over the years, This Chick can say Death Cure is a must see.

This Chick’s Rating: 7/10