Movie Review: Escape Room

Escape Room *** ½ / ***** 

Directed by: Adam Robitel.

Written by: Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik.

Starring: Taylor Russell (Zoey), Logan Miller (Ben), Deborah Ann Woll (Amanda), Tyler Labine (Mike), Nik Dodani (Danny), Jay Ellis (Jason). 

 

Two horror series I had a tough time quitting no matter how silly they got were the Saw and Final Destination franchises. Both started off being, admittedly, ridiculous and then with each passing installment had to up the ante more and more and more until it was impossible to take any of it at all seriously – which of course was part of the fun about both franchises. The new film, Escape Room – the first wide release movie of 2018 – seems to want to step in and fill the void left by those two franchises, and does so in a surprisingly fun first installment of what could easily become a new guilty favorite horror franchise. Well, horror-lite franchise, as the movie really isn’t all that scary, nor is it trying to be. It wants to be tense and entertaining and fun, and knows you cannot take it seriously, and doesn’t take itself seriously either. In short, it’s a fun way to spend a January night at the movies.

 

The film is about a group of six strangers – all of whom receive puzzle boxes, that they have to solve, and when they do they unlock an invitation to attend an “immersive escape room” – that if they can solve, they’ll win $10,000. So they arrive at the time and place they are told to, are herded into a room – and without realizing it, the game starts. Like the escape room that have become a fad in real life (I’ve done a few with my wife – good times, mostly) – you have to solve a series of puzzles, which will unlock the door, and let you out. In this case, it just lets you into another escape room – and more puzzles. At some point, they begin to suspect that they aren’t really playing a game at all – but they’re in it for real, and if they cannot make it out, the consequences will also be real.

 

To say more about the plot would be unfair, since the movie is pretty much all plot, and depends on the twists and turns – and surprises in the rooms themselves for its effectiveness. The characters are all one note – the actors are playing types more than real characters, and only three of six of them are given scenes before they get to escape room to define them (all of their backstories will eventually come out, of course, because they were selected for a reason). The lead is Zoey (Taylor Russell – quite good), a quiet, nerdy genius at her university who keeps to herself while everyone else parties. There’s also Wall Street bro Jason (Jay Ellis), and stoner Ben (Logan Miller), nice guy trucker Mike (Tyler Labine), Iraq war vet Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll) and gamer geek Danny (Nik Dodani) as well – an expert on escape rooms, so he can explain the rules to the rest of them, who apparently showed up to an escape room not knowing what they were. With those few sentences, the characters are now as well defined for you as they are at the end of the movie.

 

No one is going to mistake a film like Escape Room for high art, and even great genre filmmaking. It’s ambitions are low, as are the payoffs. But the payoffs are still very real – and rewarding in their own way. The thing that the Saw and Final Destination franchises knew was that it was fun for the audience to try and piece together precisely what was going to happen before the characters did, and they got killed off in creative ways. Escape Room knows this as well – and if the deaths in Escape Room are a little tame this time around, I imagine the ante will be upped in further sequels – which of course are setup at the end of this film.

 

January releases are supposed to be bad. Most moviegoers are still either catching up with the Christmas Oscar releases, or blockbusters, throughout January, so it’s a dumping ground for studios to offload their mistakes and hopefully make a couple of bucks. Escape Room is better than the typical January release. It’s fun and silly and dumb in all the right way for a film like this.