Movie Review: Escape Room

Escape RoomTech Evening News, February 1, 2019

Times Of India's Rating ; 3.0/5

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CAST:	Deborah Ann Woll, Taylor Russell, Tyler Labine, Logan Miller
DIRECTION:	Adam Robitel
GENRE:	Horror, Mystery
DURATION:	1 hours 40 minutes

• Escape Room Movie Review

Critic's Rating: 2.0/5

Shy maths student Zoey (Taylor Russell), cynical slacker Ben (Logan Miller), geek Danny (Nik Dodani), ex-soldier Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), truck driver Mike (Tyler Labine) and a stock market wiz Jason (Jay Ellis) get invited to enter a escape room. They’ll get ten thousand dollars if they escape it before the clock runs out. The waiting room itself is the first hurdle as heaters get turned on, the temperatures get oppressive and the players are in danger of being burnt as the chandelier catches fire. They somehow survive it only to get sucked into a Tundra like place, full of snow and ice. This room claims the first victim. The third room is even more bizarre -- it’s upside down and has a musical chair theme, with pieces falling off after the music stops. It’s later learnt that all the players are somehow connected to each other and worse, the rooms themselves are reflections of real-life tragedies faced by each in their respective lives. Whether anyone comes out alive or not at the end is the big mystery. 

There are actual escape rooms found almost in every city and the experience is all the rage currently. So the film has caught on to the right idea. However, the execution leaves much to be desired. The film is a modern day take off on David Fincher’s seminal The Game (1997), starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn. Even one of its posters looks similar to one of The Game’s posters. It also borrows elements of the Saw franchise. Sadly, it isn’t as clever as the first or as gory as the second. The sets are well-made, full marks to the production design team for that. But apart from their uniqueness, there is nothing else going for the film. The storyline becomes predictable, the plot points turn repetitive. We stop investing emotionally in the players midway and by the end we don’t really care whether they survive or not. The actors gamely try to stay involved but the convoluted plot gets the better of them. 

Summing up, one can only say that the film tries to do too many things at the same time and that leads to its downfall. 

TRAILER : ESCAPE ROOM