Escape Room – Film Review

Throughout the years, we have gotten several feature films that have taken an object or item and have turned it into something that we should be afraid of, such as the cult classic Child’s Play films, or the upcoming film titled Polaroid which centers around the titular item.

A group of six complete strangers receive a mysterious puzzle cube that invites them to attend a place called Mino’s Escape Room, which is said to contain some of the most challenging escape rooms the world has to offer. But, if they manage to make it out of all of them, they will receive a cash reward of $10,000. They take this offer as too good to refuse, but once they are locked in the rooms, they soon find out that these escape rooms are far more deadly and chaotic than they originally thought.

To be completely honest, the film’s several rooms and challenges that it presents to its audience and its characters are actually decently entertaining. Although these sequences can be quite thrilling, the thing that constantly bogs them down as well as the overall picture as a whole, are unfortunately the main characters. Almost every character besides the lead protagonist Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell), are all extraordinarily annoying and unlikeable, partly due to their rude characteristics. It is genuinely difficult to root for these people all the way through since they are almost always portrayed as miserable and crass. Sometimes the decisions they all collectively make as a group are also quite baffling.

Easily the greatest scene Escape Room has to offer is a puzzle scene that involves an upside-down bar which does actually offer a plethora of intense moments and it never lets up. The unfortunate thing is though, this scene ends a bit too quickly and as soon as it is all over, we are presented with an extremely weak third act.

The final thirty minutes or so of it all ends up being unintentionally hilarious with one scene that actually made several theatre-goers around me snicker at the absurdity of the situation.

Anybody that was having a lot of fun with Escape Room throughout its entire running time are definitely going to be in for a major disappointment with its ending as well, as it shamelessly sets up a sequel that most people probably are not going to want to watch, especially after the climax of this film.

Even with some thrilling sequences and good entertainment value, Escape Room is bogged down with hugely unlikeable characters and unintentionally comical moments that are hard to take seriously.

Overall Grade: C

MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for terror/perilous action, violence, some suggestive material and language

Cast: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine

Directed by: Adam Robitel

Distributed by: Sony Pictures Releasing

Running Time: 100 minutes