The clue to what that is in the title: the stone construction’s a maze. More to the point, it’s a maze that can’t be escaped, that shuts its doors at night, and makes noises that test the bass of any half decent sound system. It would be fair to call the maze itself a CG achievement of some triumph. As the film pulls back on its intriguing premise, though, and tells you more and more about its world, it starts to go wrong. Director Wes Ball gets a lot of the human stuff right, and when he’s exploring the glade, the relationships within it, and the setup of the world, he’s on confident form. But within the maze itself, the film never clicks in the same way. In fact, it makes two fundamental mistakes. Then, The Maze Runner makes the time-honoured CG error. Back in 1993, Steven Spielberg proved by having two kids running around a kitchen in Jurassic Park that it’s entirely possible to have CG creations sending the chills up you. Here, in 2014, The Maze Runner – without giving too much away – fundamentally fails that test. It boasts foes that – for all their design qualities – could have come in from a handful of other films, and at the point The Maze Runner should be raising the stakes, it’s stumbling. When it does let you see what’s going on, in the last third at least, it’s not always worth the bother. Given that a sequel has already been announced, it’s no surprise that the finale is better at setting up what’s next than tying up what we’ve just seen. And in fairness, it slots some interesting developments into place, which suggest there’s a more interesting story to tell around the corner. The Maze Runner is out in UK cinemas on the 10th October. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.