With a narrative devoted to action, The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials keeps the audience in the game but leaves them with an unsatisfactory sequel.

Adapted from James Dashner’s YA series, the film follows Thomas and his fellow Gladers as they find themselves  in a safe haven run by their enemy, WCKD. Convinced that WCKD has the intentions of killing the group, Thomas and friends escape the safe zone and enter a life-deprived wasteland desolated by a pandemic known as the Flare. With no maze, the group crosses a desert and encounters corrupted civilizations, while being chased by WCKD.

And like most journeys through a desert, one hardly knows where they’re going. Neither did the makers of this film. Significant acme points of drama in the novel had no appearance. Although author Dashner does write action from point A to point B, and The Scorch Trials followed this pattern, the makers did the best they could with what they had to work with. The Maze Runner series derives action and suspense through the use of confusion: inarticulate symbols that hold a significant connotation. That is hard to transfer into movie material.

In the novel, the tension between Teresa and Thomas’s relationship was tangible. Thomas felt more of a guilt for ‘betraying’ her at times. Translate that into the movie, and there is little to no evidence of this drama. In fact, the weight of Teresa’s betrayal had little buildup.

It is guaranteed though, that The Scorch Trials did not fall short in the action race. The zombie-like Cranks, -people infected by the Flare- provided a quality sense of foreboding, as they screeched and summoned Cranks upon Cranks. Whether Thomas and friends precariously trekked through their impending doom, or were hanging from a collapsed skyscraper, the action was a constant.

In the end, The Scorch Trials feels like a setup for the last installment in the series The Death Cure, than an independent sequel. With all the action cards played in the deck, the makers will have to pull out some trump card if the trilogy to the series is to end successfully.

The final verdict is 6 out of 10.