It was a disappointment. The Maze Runner was fresh and inventive, a new take on Lord of the Flies, and my favourite of the Dystopian franchises. Now we have something that has come across as derivative and unfocused.

The first third, action-wise, was good with the introduction of the zombies (cranks) and a few jump scares, but after that, the plot never went anywhere with them. We didn’t learn anything about our main characters, and Thomas’ irrational paranoia made him annoying rather than smart, rebellious and cool. It is very clear that he is rebelling but against what? He doesn’t really know other than knowing you can’t trust authority. The revelation and justification in the final scenes and the reaction to it didn’t work for me.

Again, science is played as the bad guy and the smart people are the evil ones, which is getting old for me.

Now that the plot has matched the other big franchises we can compare them all, and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) but as a film experience I think Divergent is winning. The Scorch Trials certainly misses the charisma and star power of the Hunger Games. Maybe the third instalment will rectify the problems.