Escape Room
Starring: Logan Miller, Taylor Russell, Jay Ellis, Deborah Ann Woll
Directed by: Adam Robitel
Rated: PG-13
Is this an escape room or a death trap? For the audience of this film, it feels like the latter.
Escape Room is a low budget thriller based around 6 strangers entering an escape room under mysterious circumstances. If any of the individuals can solve the room, they’ll receive $10,000. Easy enough, right? Not quite.
This is a dull and derivative film. Escape Room takes several ideas from The Cabin in the Woods and Saw and attempts to update those ideas with the current craze of escape rooms. Unfortunately, it’s not well executed. The direction by Adam Robitel doesn’t offer a strong vision guiding the film. It’s just the same scenario that happens over and over with a group of characters who lack decent characterization. Since each scene is so predictable, the film loses any kind of tension it hopes to gain. Each room is just a ticking time bomb for one character. Rinse and repeat.
This screenplay of Escape Room screams January film release. Perhaps that’s the most horrifying aspect of all. Half of the film is just the same predictable scenario repeated every 20 minutes. Characters in danger. Get clues to find a way out of danger. One character will die. Repeat. There’s a strange way the script attempts to introduce each character’s backstory in relation to how it relates to the game, but it’s very poorly put together. Not to mention that every character is just a bad stereotype. This includes Zoe, the painfully shy introvert, Jason, the ultra rich investment banker, and Danny, the nerd who is obsessed with escape rooms! There is very little depth to any person in the film. Ultimately, they’re only used as pieces in the game.
The one redeeming quality of Escape Room is the set design. Each room takes on a personality of its own, partially making up for the ridiculous script. (One particular room seems a bit too much like a Snapchat filter come to life, but the others serve their purpose.) The rooms that stand out include an icy snowscape, an upside-down retro bar, and a study that seems to shrink with each passing second. These sets may be cool, but you really don’t need to see them in a movie, you could just go to an escape room and have a much better time.
Escape Room is a majorly forgettable thriller that borrows many of its ideas from other films. It offers nothing new or exciting to the genre. It’s poor screenplay and repetitive nature make for frustratingly dull film watching. You’d be better off escaping this theatrical experience.
My rating: 3/10
*All images belong to Sony Pictures