Written by: Bragi F. Schut & Maria Melnik
Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani
Rating: [3/5]
Immersive mystery-solving games like escape rooms represent the opportunity to find yourself in a strange circumstance and navigate your way out. Inherently, it carries a level of fear of trying to escape something within a specific amount of time, which could flare up some claustrophobia for some. Therefore, it comes as no surprise this concept would receive an adaptation of it within a horror movie as we receive in the aptly labeled Escape Room. Through its thrills and surprising reveals, it proves a jolly good time with some excellent production design.
Meek and challenged to get out of her comfort zone, Zoey (Taylor Russell) receives an invitation to take part in a completely immersive escape room experience. When she arrives, she interacts with others who have received the same invitation. As the escape room challenge begins, they find the puzzles difficult but begin to realize the effects in place present real danger to them.
With a concept like this feature, it surprised me it took this long for Hollywood to turn it into a film but perhaps the wait allowed for the formation of the creative set pieces we receive in these rooms, ultimately making the movie watchable. What we receive with the characters leaves much to be desired existing as mostly archetypes thrown together into the space, but each of these rooms presents a separate challenge allowing for the audience to take part but at a much safer distance. Each new challenge gets progressively more difficult as they get through each room, which evidently means the likelihood of death becomes much more apparent.
With each new mystery, we get to appreciate the work done through the excellent production design. Every room presented something very different than the preceding one taking us from the start to even a room decorated upside down. It truly speaks to the care and effort put into crafting these rooms, which certainly commanded most of the budget the feature had at its disposal. Creativity shines in this aspect of the feature, which makes considering it essentially serves as the star of the show.
While entranced in this sequence of mysteries the larger questions loom such as who has assembled these individuals for these games and why specifically have Zoey and the others have been brought together to partake in the game. Those answers we eventually receive at the end, which gets a bit stale and does the feature no favors with its lameness to the point where it becomes quite evident this feature wants to be like the Saw and Final Destination films and nearly fumbles the entire bag at the end. It gives credence to the idea of perhaps it should have remained a larger mystery all throughout instead of trying to give any explanation that could have any sort of believability.
Though we receive thin characters for the most part, this film gives Taylor Russell an opportunity to front a film and she does fairly well in this effort. She takes a strong hold of what this role demands of her, which in fairness is not a lot and makes for a compelling character worth following through this journey. She certainly receives the most material to work with compared to others like Deborah Ann Woll but she certainly makes the most of it. With each of these characters admittedly having a purpose for arriving at this game, one that did tickle me was the experienced escape room enthusiast, Danny (Nik Dodani) who had nothing but excitement for the game. Even when they found themselves on the verge of being roasted alive, he appreciated the immersion of the game. At least he had fun throughout this experience before meeting his end.
Quite the fun thrill ride despite the shockingly bad finale, Escape Room gathers these characters and allows us to enjoy this horrific experience with them. Each new room allowed the filmmakers to craft some dangerous sequences putting the morality of these characters at the forefront as survival becomes the name of the game at a certain point. It creates so many entertaining sequences reminding us to perhaps not answer the call from a random box to engage in a game where you get locked into a room, need to find your way out, and at the mercy of someone watching you on camera.
Films with Josh 