External Ratings (as of posting)
IMDB – 7.7/10 from 17,263 users
MetaCritic – 56/100 on 32 critics, 7.4/10 on 62 users

Audience and Scoring:
Ross – 7.5/10
Weber – 8.0/10

 

Weber

Caveat: I did NOT read the book beforehand.  Apparently it’s the first of four?  Good to know!  (The titles for the other 3 are atrocious, bee tee dubs.  Sorry.)  Unlike other recent young adult (YA) novels that have been turned into movies – OTHER than Hunger Games, though there are certainly parts that suffer as well – the pacing of Maze Runner was surprisingly well done.  Typically, along with pacing, scene cuts and general plot lines will leave an uneducated viewer filling in large gaps; Divergent comes to mind as one that made me, again having not read the source material, reach a bit or struggle with aspects that had been glossed over or not as filled out due to various movie constraints.

SPOILER: I was somewhat caught off guard by the number of “kids” that die in the film.  I figure it sticks true to the book, but it’s not something you see this side of Lord of the Flies a whole lot.   The characters were, overall, intriguing, and no particular part felt over-acted or poorly delivered.  Fans of HBO’s Game of Thrones should recognize at least one familiar face, but the others were relative unknowns – to me, at least.

Action sequences were well done, and several parts (one shown in the trailer) where the walls of the maze nearly crush someone had me cringing waiting for a stray limb to pop off.  The Greavers were particularly gruesome in all honesty.

It’s not a terribly deep film, but given it’s based on a series of YA novels I wouldn’t expect War and Peace or anything.  Typical Leader of the Pack role struggles exist, but are handled in somewhat novel fashion, if a bit overbearing toward the end.

TL;DR - Solid movie, and I look forward to the next in the series which 
hopefully won't get canned like some of its peers apparently have.  
I intend to go read the source material now, though I have it on good 
authority from my young nieces that it's "just OK."

 

Ross

This movie is a 7. Really though, the art direction and sound design bump it up just a tad. The dystopian world that The Maze Runner occurs in is simultaneously drop dead gorgeous and horribly frightening. The raw, painful nature of the maze shifting and the grating, bellowing noises that it makes are a serious benefit to this, at times, flawed story.

Nothing in this movie is particularly bad in context, though some story moments feel contrived and some characters serve as mildly mysterious exposition machines. It is still one of the better, “Hunger Games” style movies that I’ve seen in a long time. At points the action is gripping and claustrophobic, while the drama between the teens is solid. Characters come off as, for the most part, realistic, given the over the top situation they’ve been put in.

My issues lie with certain moments of direction and the ending. Wes Ball, in his silver screen debut, does some very good work making the world of The Maze Runner both haunting and beautiful. Sometimes he ends up wasting this world with quick-cut, shaky cam, action sequences that left me feeling mildly confused and annoyed that I couldn’t have just been given an easier-to-understand view of the trouble. These moments don’t ruin the movie by any means, just stick out in the middle like a pothole in the road.

The ending has a very similar quality. It was fast, filled with exposition, and hastily put together story-wise. Could leave you with a sour taste in your mouth, or leave you wanting more of the universe they’ve put together here, either way, unsatisfying. Regardless, this movie is worth the 12 bucks to see if you have a spare couple of hours, nothing mind-blowing, but solid in it’s own right.

External Ratings (as of posting)
IMDB – 7.0/10 from 426 users
MetaCritic – 55/100 on 26 critics, TBD on user score

Audience and Scoring:
Ross – 7.5/10
Conrad – 8.0/10 (declined to add written review)
Weber – 7.0/10

BONUS:  Fleetwood Mac & USC Trojan Marching Band playing Tusk in 1979

 

Weber
Bar none, most ridiculous movie I’ve seen in quite some time.  Take Kevin Smith’s brand of humor and Frankenstein it with “The Human Centipede” and you’ll have an idea of where this movie goes.  Silly and darkly hilarious, it’s never meant to be taken seriously and when you do the movie shifts around again and proves why you shouldn’t have.

If you know Kevin Smith’s work at all, Tusk fits right in though, as mentioned, in a much darker corner than his other comedies.  His writing and directing shine through, and there are plenty of funny dialogue sequences as well as long, eerie diatribes from Michael Parks a la Red State, only with more $5 and $10 words for good measure.

I’m not sure if I’d give it the standing ovation that it received at the Toronto Film Festival, but Tusk is a solid movie if you have the ability to see it for what it is.  Absurdist, black, and funny.

SPOILERS:  Johnny Depp, credited as his character Guy Lapointe, is downright unrecognizable (or close to), and does a fantastic job as a disheveled French detective come to save the day.

TL;DR - If you're a Kevin Smith fan, go see Tusk.  
Just keep your silly hat on.  If you listened to the podcast that spawned the movie, you'll be in the right mindset for this one.

 

Ross
This is the silliest, most awesome-ly horrifying film I’ve seen in a very long time. It spends periods of time trying to convince you that this could actually happen and then rip you out of that dream very quickly with a fast aside to funny talking Canadians or over-the-top walrus jokes. Kevin Smith does amazing work with both the script and the directing, taking his chance to write obnoxiously verbose dialogue for Michael Parks’ character.

The acting in this movie is spot on for the most part. Guy LaPointe is hilarious and Genesis Rodriguez shows the legitmate ability to display emotion. Honestly, I just feel sorry for Justin Long, he wasn’t given ample opportunity in this movie to do much other than scream in pain and blurt out a couple of snarky comments. Michael Parks is as fantastically insane as usual and Haley Joel Osment is, well, there.

I love Kevin Smith and his writing but the only true flaw that I found in this movie was the occasional excessively long scenes. I understand him letting the moments breathe and I understand allowing the actors time to really bring life to characters but there are a few moments in the movie that stretch out longer than is necessary, to the point of being uncomfortable.

TL;DR: I liked it a lot, creepy as all hell and silly to boot. 
Well written, directed and acted, definitely worth your probably 
overpriced ticket.

External Ratings (as of posting)
IMDB – 4.3/10 from 206 users
MetaCritic – TBD

Audience and Scoring:
Ross – 3.0/10
Weber – 3.0/10

 

Weber
First, this is a tricky movie to review. It’s bad, like whoa bad, and it may be hard to criticize the movie without also appearing to criticize the message. Overall from a marketing standpoint, the movie was terribly misrepresented by its trailer: if you are expecting an end-of-the-world, Biblical style Rapture action/survival/horror flick as the trailer would lead you to believe, steer clear. What you are treated to instead are moments of action serving as the punctuation to overly drawn-out and incredibly forceful diatribes about finding God in the post apocalyptic world. As if the large ephemeral demons slaughtering people wholesale aren’t enough proof that He exists and, by the by, is quite angry with the leftovers of humanity for not believing enough in Him.

So let’s cover the good. The directing, filmography, and sound (particularly) were well done. The direction is apparent in a distinct lack of cheesily delivered lines (as in reading out loud vs. actual line delivery) that you would expect from a typically “bad” movie.

That’s about it for the “good” parts. The script, decently delivered per the directing, is still just shy of atrocious. (It’s no Plan 9 here, but it’s probably worth the guys at MST3k taking a crack at it, for sure.) It should be noted that the director and writer are the same person, a Mr. Casey La Scala whose only other directorial credit is “Grind” released in 2003. Acting, while not terrible, falls apart when any of the performers were asked to emote beyond a vague shock at the current Rapture proceedings. I doubt any of them managed to shed a real tear during any particularly heavy moment.

As far as Christian horror movies go however, I’ve seen worse. While The Remaining may have punched its audience in the face with its message on occasion, it was still far less preachy than some things I’ve seen.

TL;DR - Don't go see this movie unless you enjoy a good echo chamber 
of the particular brand of Christianity that exists in the American mid West.

 

Ross
Have you ever seen a movie with a metric ton of demons coming from the sky that didn’t display that particular event in a, “cool” light? The Remaining achieved that feat today. It’s a movie that beats you over the head with a message and then seems to attempt to make it alright by showing off mild gore alongside.

Obviously I wasn’t enthused by the 83 minute Christian survival “horror” movie but that is not to say it is entirely without merit. The cinematography, while not for everyone given the occasional use of shaky cam and found footage style filmmaking, is at least of decent quality. By no means was I blown away by any camera work, but it was solid. The sound direction and music was of a higher quality as well, with trumpet blasts from the heavens coming through very distinct and jarring, oftentimes nearly deafening the characters.

That’s pretty much the end of the good in the movie. Editing was spotty and strange, with transitions in space and time for the sake of moving characters to the next setpiece moment instead of naturally. Acting across the board was stiff to say the least, and hammy in places. The writing is what does this movie it’s largest disservice, being both on the nose and at times, downright abusive to the viewer in terms of pushing a message. The message itself isn’t a problem. The key issue is the stereotypical ghosts of characters that abandon a “sinful” worldview in light of the apocalyptic events around them. That isn’t to say the transitions that they all make are unfounded, instead that none of them appear to have any true characterising qualities outside of the wrongs they’ve committed during or prior to the movie. The main characters represent a deadly sin trope at one point or another and none seem to truly resolve the problems they had, instead just choosing belief over any real progression.

TL;DR: Sound and cinematography are the only real high points in this 
faith-based thriller that assaults you with it's message.