The audience was on the edge of their seats from the moment the movie started. The first scene of The Maze Runner showed Dylan O’Brien in a small, screechy box that was quickly rising like an elevator. And that was the calmest part of the movie. From running from Grievers, to avoiding the crushing walls of the maze, The Maze Runner is a high energy, intense movie that leaves you asking questions and wanting to know more.

After the box opens, viewers are introduced to the Glade, a green area surrounded by huge gray walls, and the boys that live there. All of them, including Thomas (O’Brien), have no memory of who they are or what’s going on. They only know that a new boy and some supplies are dropped off through the box every month and that the only way out of the Glade is into the maze that surrounds the Glade.

But in the maze is not somewhere one wants to be. During the day it’s safe enough, if they can find their way back, but as it’s said many times in the movie: “No one survives a night in the maze.” At night the doors between the maze and the Glade close, locking anyone stuck on the other side out, and locking the Grievers in. The Grievers are terrifying monsters: a mix between a robot, spider, and scorpion. Thomas has many thrilling encounters with these creatures, especially after he becomes a Maze Runner, one of the boys that runs through the maze during the day to map it. Not only do the Grievers chase them, but the walls of the maze change in the night. Huge walls falling and smashing into one another add to the tense, on-the-edge-of-your-seat feeling.

In the Glade, social issues prevail as Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster, also the voice of Ferb on the TV show Phineas and Ferb) and Gally (Will Poulter) go back and forth on who should be the leader after Alby (Aml Ameen) is stung by a Griever. Gally is just as vexatious as another character that Poulter is known for: Eustace from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The Maze Runner has the shortcomings that most dystopian society books and movies have. Most questions go unanswered. There are also many convenient walls that crush Grievers that are gaining on Thomas, and edges to push Grievers off conveniently. There are many unnamed, flat characters that suffer the wrath of the Grievers, which doesn’t seem to add anything to the plot of the story. The movie doesn’t stray far from the book, but that doesn’t help it much, as the book has many of the same shortcomings.

Overall, The Maze Runner is a fantastic movie if you can ignore the all-too-convenient solutions and the questions that are left unanswered about the maze and the people who made it. The various chase scenes with the Grievers are thrilling, delightfully terrifying, and also very similar to the scene with Shelob from the third Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King. Though there are many movies similar to The Maze Runner, this one sets itself apart by how dark and more frightening it is. It definitely blows Divergent out of the water. This movie is perfect for anyone who likes dystopian movies, has read The Maze Runner, or just enjoys watching Dylan O’Brien.