Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on a dangerous mission to save their friends in the finale to the 'Maze Runner' trilogy. Prime members enjoy FREE Two-Day Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books.

Another year passes, another YA sci-fi saga comes to an end. Almost four years after the release of The Maze Runner, the third film in the saga, The Maze Runner: Death Cure, is hitting theaters and concluding the dystopian action franchise.

But while, fans of the original trilogy and the book series it was adapted from shouldn't be too upset, as there's still hope that more Maze Runner stories could be told onscreen, in one form or another.In Death Cure, fans of will get to see what happens to the original crew from the glades, Thomas, Newt, Minho, and Teresa. The movie, like the book it's based on, gives each character a satisfying ending, ( light spoilers ahead), though Death Cure's last scene does hint that Thomas' story might not be as over as we thought. His savior complex is still just as alive as ever, and it's clear that, should the studio and creative minds behind the project deem the Maze Runner franchise worthy of more films, there's plenty of story left to be told.That said, actor Dylan O'Brien, who starred as Thomas for three films and was, has made it pretty clear that this is where his Maze Runner journey ends. 'It means a lot to me to be able to finish the film and,' O'Brien said in an interview with USA Today. Note the use of the word 'finish.' In a separate interview, O'Brien also expressed excitement at the future of his career. With Teen Wolf and the Maze Runner trilogy behind him, the actor is unemployed for the first time in his professional career.

'I always had the show and/or. So it's going to be a whole new world,' he told Australia's Herald Sun. 'It's sad to see two things go that I deeply care about, but they'll always be with me.'

Other cast members who have been in the trilogy from the beginning, like Kaya Scodelario, who plays Teresa, have used similarly final language when referring to the film. Scodelario even called it a 'goodbye,' telling ScreenRant, 'I think we are really saying to these characters and we are tying up all the loose ends.' And director Wes Ball, who helmed all three films, wrote on Twitter that the third movie was particularly challenging because it was 'THE END,' noting 'We wanted to do a proper farewell.' Based on, it's fitting that the Maze Runner movies would come to an end after this third chapter. After all, it's where the books originally ended.

However, since the release of The Death Cure book in 2011, Dashner has added two more books to the series: prequels The Kill Order (2012) and The Fever Code (2016). These two prequels take place far enough before The Maze Runner that they could, in theory, be produced without the participation of the trilogy actors. Thomas and his friends don't really appear in The Kill Order, and in The Fever Code they are children, which would require a cast of brand new actors, allowing for O'Brien, Scodelario, and their co-stars to move on from the series.The Kill Order in particular tracks the that kills most of humanity, the consequences of which is crucial to The Death Cure, and has almost nothing to do with Thomas or any of his friends. In the current Hollywood landscape, where zombie and dystopian shows are all the rage (see The Walking Dead), it's not outside the realm of possibility that fans could get more Maze Runner content brought to the screen.

Dashner himself recently floated the idea of a prequel television show on Twitter, asking followers, 'Is it too early to beg Fox to make the prequels into a TV show?'

Of the dystopian young adult franchises that “The Hunger Games” hath wrought, “The Maze Runner” series has always been one of the most forthrightly entertaining — and the sweatiest. But that sweat is evidence of what makes this trilogy work, because, as capably directed by Wes Ball, it takes off at a full sprint and never slows down. It can be a pleasantly pummeling experience, an adrenaline-drenched ride, hot on the heels of the appealingly energetic star Dylan O’Brien. In the third and ostensibly final film, “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” Ball and company go for broke and push the pyrotechnic action to the brink of unpleasant.This franchise brings a boyish, impish energy to the teen apocalypse genre. “The Hunger Games” films were nakedly emotional, each tragedy channeled through the primal scream of Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss. “Divergent” et al., were too fastidious, cold, clean and remote to connect.

But “Maze Runner,” adapted by T.S. Nowlin from James Dashner’s novels, brings grime and grit to this race for survival in a dystopian post-civilization world that’s eating its young.“The Maze Runner” was straightforward and task-oriented — a bunch of teens dropped into a mysterious glade have to try and escape through a maze every day — and the series never loses sight of that ethos. The maze is metaphorical rather than physical now, as Thomas (O’Brien) tries to escape the maze of a crumbling civilization corrupted by the evil corporation WICKED. Thomas and his young cohort have found themselves WICKED’s test subjects, as they’re immune to the Flare disease, which turns humans into bloodthirsty “cranks.”As we discovered in the second film, “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials,” this apocalyptic tale is actually a zombie movie, an element that gives the whole enterprise that much more bite. What Thomas can do is run, and run he does, often without thinking the whole thing through. He ran out of the maze and into WICKED’s lair. He ran out of WICKED and straight to a group of Patagonia-clad resistance fighters seeking safe haven (or a Burning Man camp).

His goal is always just to get out, with all of his friends alive.“The Death Cure” hits the ground at a rollicking gallop, with a stunning, classical western-inspired opening sequence, as Thomas stages the rescue of his friend Minho (Ki Hong Lee) from a moving train. He and his team of rebels hijack a train car and a cargo plane with a system of hooks, cables, rusty pickup trucks and sheer will. But, they snag the wrong car, and Minho is transported to WICKED HQ in the last standing city to withstand torturous trials as scientists try to extract and develop a virus-fighting serum. When Thomas sets off on yet another rescue mission, things get complicated when he discovers his former flame Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) is one of the scientists working on the serum (the “death cure”).The overall plot itself isn’t all that complex, a straightforward rescue mission that requires breaking into a fortress in order to break out. But the path is riddled with obstacles, including a leprous Walton Goggins, who leads an uprising at the walls of the city, as well as old friends from the Glade popping up left and right and an army of cranks and super-soldiers bearing down in all directions.The sheer scope of the film’s third act is breathtaking, featuring children on a perilously dangling bus and a massive guerrilla uprising fought in the streets. Ball and screenwriter Nowlin keep a tight grip on the tone and the relentless pace, but they often back the story and characters into corners that only a deus ex machina can fix.

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By the time the third or fourth savior swoops out of the sky, it’s just too obviously contrived and a little bit lazy, from a writing perspective. Ball clearly embraces the maximalist approach, but as the film pushes the two hour, twenty minute mark, the control goes out the window.

It devolves into a mass of fiery explosions, crunching bone, strobing light, crumbling skyscrapers and a wall of noise. The sneering villain, Janson (Aidan Gillen) becomes a caricature, a boogeyman who can’t be killed. Lost in this orange mass is any earnest or earned emotion.

It’s overwhelming, numbing, and exhausting. In “The Death Cure,” the “Maze Runner” pushes it to the limit and ultimately ends up spent.Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.- ‘Maze Runner: The Death Cure’Running time: 2 hours, 22 minutes.