The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials is a very worthy sequel to the first film.

We loved the first book but criticised the first film in the franchise for whizzing through the plot and not investing enough time in the characters and environment.

The Scorch Trials plays with the events of book two but moves things forward considerably, ramping up the tension and setting the series apart from the relatively similar Hunger Games and Divergent franchises.

Starting off like a zombie horror film this progresses through different environments and characters always turning up the tension and keeping things unpredictable.

This is very much a 'middle chapter' setting up the third film nicely and certainly only worth seeing if you have seen the first.

Each set piece and environment feels similar and all have one person that everyone automatically follows as a leader (which is odd) and it still leaves a number of questions unanswered.

However, we're fans of the series and think this moves things on nicely.

4 stars ****