A middle child that's beyond mediocre

FIRST, there was the Maze - a large stone labyrinth crawling with super-sized techno-tarantulas. Now there's the Scorch, a desert-like wasteland that survivors of The Maze Runner (2014) have to navigate in order to reach safety. And don't forget the Flare, a deadly virus that turns victims into extras from Michael Jackson's Thriller video. Welcome to Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, the second instalment in a dystopian trilogy about a group of young people struggling to make sense of their place in a post-apocalyptic world.

Fans of TheHunger Games and Divergent series will recognise a scenario where appealing young adults are compelled to escape from a sinister organisation and various other life-threatening dangers including - but not limited to - a desolate waterless landscape, heavily armed bad guys and an army of flesh-eating zombies.

Some but not all of the youths have immunity from the Flare, which is why the head honchos at WCKD (World Catastrophe Killzone Department) are intent on harvesting immune fluids from their bodies in an effort to develop a cure. That's about all you need to know as far as the Big Picture goes. The rest of The Scorch Trials, directed by Wes Ball, written by TS Nowlin and based on the book by James Dashner, is one extended chase scene, divided into several distinct parts.