Escape Room is directed by Adam Robitel (Insidious: The Last Key) and stars Deborah Ann Woll (Daredevil), Taylor Russell (Lost in Space), and Logan Miller (Love, Simon). It tells the story of six strangers who are invited to an escape room, but this game is a lot different than one any of them have played before.
January is often the dumping ground for movies. Studios see it as the least profitable time of year and will release movies they do not expect to be that good or do that well. Every once in a while, a movie like Split comes along and bucks that trend. So, I was hoping for a similar result with Escape Room.
The best part of the movies are the escape rooms themselves. Clearly a lot of effort went into designing the traps and money went into physically building the rooms. The first three rooms bring quite a few thrills and fun moments. As the traps try to ratchet up the tension, some actually became quite silly and I could not help but laugh during the second to last room.
The performances are all over the place. Woll is the standout as her character has one of the more interesting backstories, but her performance is cut short. I am not sure why they chose Russell to be the lead and the one whom to market the movie around. She is not very charismatic, and her turn comes out of nowhere without being earned in the slightest. Character development is a whole is nonexistent, yet the movie wants to make you believe that a lot of growth has taken place.
One of my biggest problems with the movie is its cold open. The cold open is a staple of horror movies and has produced some iconic scenes. But rather than shoot an independent cold open, as most horror movies tend to do, Escape Room instead has a flash forward to one of the climatic scenes of the movie. By doing this they take away quite a bit of the dramatic tension by revealing who is going to survive, as well as make the scene less scary when you show it again for the second time.
What could have been a cool take on the very popular escape room game instead turns into a Saw rip-off without the gore or Jigsaw puppet. Save your money and go do an actual escape room instead (they are actually a good time).
When should you see it?
Cable
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