Escape Room (2019)

At last. After seeing the 2017 Escape Room,  I finally got around to this one. I wanted some puzzles, some devious deathtraps, and a cast of characters who would work together, but also be morally shady enough to try cutting and running when the sense of self-preservation outweighed the team spirit. And I am happy to say that Escape Room delivered exactly what I wanted.

It doesn't take long to put together the six main characters who are about to attempt the escape. Danny is the expert at escaping, having managed to overcome many previous challenges. Mike is looking forward to a fun experience that may lead to a boost in his finances. Amanda is a young war veteran. Jason is a successful businessman used to getting his own way. Ben is a bit aimless. And then there's Zoey, a quiet young woman who is the smartest of the group, which will work in their favour if they just listen to her often enough. They all think that it's going to be a standard escape room experience, with the added incentive of a cash prize. We know different, of course, because this is a horror movie. We also know that it's unlikely that everyone will make it to the end.

Directed by Adam Robitel (who did solid work on Insidious: The Last Key and impressed horror fans with his first feature, The Taking Of Deborah Logan), this is a film that knows exactly how things should be played, for better or for worse. The script, by Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik, is constantly checking things off a list that viewers will be familiar with (character backstories, potential connections between the participants, dominant character traits, etc) while moving the plot from room to room with skill and a brisk pace. Things never get boring, thanks largely to the ridiculous planning that has gone in to each room, and there are at least a couple of attempts to surprise viewers on the way to the potential final exit. Whether you think they are successful attempts or not is a completely different matter.

The cast all do well in their roles. I am a fan of both Deborah Ann Woll and Tyler Labine so seeing them being part of the main group, playing Amanda and Mike, was a big bonus for me. Nik Dodani and Logan Miller are the weakest of the bunch, but not awful, playing Danny and Ben, while Jay Ellis does fine in the role of Jason and Taylor Russell does great work with what could have easily been a very annoying character (the writing helps somewhat but Russell definitely lifts it up).

Much like the rooms that they are taking inspiration from, these puzzle horror movies depend on their puzzles. This is another area in which Escape Room works. Some of the puzzles seem very easy, some fiendishly difficult. All seem solvable, as long as the players can stay alive long enough.

Some will find this just as easy to criticise. There's a disappointing lack of bloodshed (ensuring this can reach the widest possible teen audience in various territories, I assume) and a final coda that is groan-inducingly awful. But that didn't bother me, apart from when I actually had to sit through those few minutes and moan to myself about them while they played out. Overall, I had a good time with this. I'd happily rewatch it and if they can make it into a decent franchise . . . I'm also down for that.

7/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Netflix And Chill: Escape Room (2017)

Here's the thing. I knew when this movie started that it wasn't the latest movie called Escape Room. But I only just realised it. An amusingly cheeky little move from Netflix, this popped up and I immediately thought that the latest movie was one of their products, somehow getting a cinema release while also dropping on their service. Then I saw who was involved. And then I started to check out the headlines of some of the reviews for it. This was definitely not the same film that is now in cinemas in America, and it's not been that reviewed all that favourably.

The latter is quite odd, because there's nothing here that really makes this stand out as awful. In fact, I quite enjoyed it, and would expect others who enjoy horror movies with an element of puzzle-solving to at least be reasonably entertained.

The plot is simple. For his birthday, Tyler (Evan Williams) is given an Escape Room experience. He and his friends are taken to the location by limo, phones and all other items are taken off them, they have hoods put over their heads, and when they can next look around they are in different rooms with puzzles that need answering to provide an exit. Tyler is in a room all on his own, one couple is in another room, and one couple is in yet another room. And Tyler's girlfriend seems to be imprisoned somewhere. The time limit is an hour. Can the friends work together to get out? And how will they react when they realise that the rooms are actually rigged with very deadly, very real, boobytraps?

Written by Noah Dorsey, who worked on the idea with director Will Wernick, the biggest problem with Escape Room is the generic cast. Even that's not a huge minus. They're not awful, and the script does eventually start to differentiate individuals from the homogenous mass that they make up, but they're just not that interesting or memorable enough to make as good an impression as they should have been able to. Williams, for example, is given a scene early on that shows his character being quite the whizz with numbers. That's all fine and dandy, and his intelligence is also shown in a number of other sequences, but the plot constantly requires him to be helped by others, without any other real nods to their individual strengths or skills until the very moment it is required (see a scene involving the riddle of the Sphinx for the prime example).

Wernick doesn't do a terrible job with the direction, although he keeps everything a bit tamer than some horror fans may want. The deaths don't come thick and fast, but they're enjoyable when they finally start to happen, even if some are the result of ridiculously slow reactions from the main characters (again . . . that damn Sphinx riddle scene). Between the direction and the script, the main thing is that the puzzles don't seem impossible. They all play out in a way that provides a nice balance between tension and fun, at least until the risks start to increase as people get closer to the exit (of course).

I've not seen the most recent film that shares this title, so I can't say how this one compares, but I can say that this is a slick horror movie that does enough to entertain for most of the runtime. The opening act is a bit wobbly, but things pick up immensely once everyone is placed in the puzzle-filled environments. And that's what I hoped would happen.

6/10

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