Metacritic reviews

Downplaying some of the property’s sillier elements when not jettisoning them entirely, and streamlining the narrative into a rousing and at times even emotional action film, “Death Cure” is the most successful entry in the franchise by far.

This is the sort of action film where the bad guys often hold their fire for no discernible reason, and are terrible at dodging things, but if one suspends one’s disbelief long enough, they’re rewarded with a rollicking, highly competent popcorn movie.

It’s a shame that The Maze Runner movies are going out on their flattest note, but The Death Cure isn't completely off-key. Wes Ball has directed every entry in the franchise and he’s evolved into a very skilled action filmmaker. Complex set-pieces with an incredible number of moving parts are depicted clearly, excitingly, and with visual panache.

The script is just so-so, but Ball’s directorial eye, clear in the first “Maze Runner” film though largely AWOL in the second, saves the third and final adventure from its own bloat.

It’s hardly fresh, but the spectacle is decent and the relationship dynamics absorb just enough to fill the lengthy run time.

Any longer-in-the-tooth fans of gritty sci-fi action will find this maze a little too easy to escape.

It’s director Wes Ball who emerges as the real hero here, the former visual effects supervisor proving himself to be the rare filmmaker who can force some genuine vigor into one of these banal modern blockbusters.

The third and final film in the Maze Runner series, subtitled “The Death Cure,” gets it half right as an action movie. The stunts, the explosions and the chases are all exciting and elaborately mounted; there’s just not much of a movie to go with them.

The thin story plays out in a hail of bullets, zombies and action-laden sequences.

Emotional complication is what this film, so abundant in last-minute getaways, fake-outs, and half-hearted nods to the franchise's greatest hits, needed so as to elevate it out of its programmatic torpor.