The Twist: Boys wake up in a strange glade at the centre of an ever-changing maze is the set-up of this young adult adaptation piggybacking on The Hunger Games' success. And naturally discovering what exactly is going on is the main narrative thrust. By the end the sub-Lord Of The Flies gang have made it out, finding a massive, abandoned operations centre, before being whisked away by a platoon of soldiers. A final scene reveals this was all part of some mysterious plan. Why It's So Dumb: If you're going to have a twist, commit to having a twist. Don't give the audience a bone of an answer before immediately yanking them into a bigger mystery. It'd be like Darth Vader revealing he didn't kill Anakin Skywalker, but then leaving the rest of the twist for another adventure. That's exactly what The Maze Runner does - instead of an answer, we just get a continuation of the mystery masquerading as a reveal. It's made abundantly clear from less than halfway through that the maze is being controlled by a group of suits early on, so finding out that it's being controlled by a group of suits at the end is a paltry reward. Episodic movie-making is here to stay, which is a shame when most franchises (i.e. anything that isn't Marvel) don't put much effort in individual entries working in a stand-alone manner. The Maze Runner teases answers due in the later movies, but still presents its ending as if it's a satisfying conclusion. It's not. What do you think are the dumbest twists of the year? Let us know in the comments below.
