Escape Room

Escape Room (2019)

52% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 84 reviews)

Runtime: 100 minutes

Directed by: Adam Robitel

Starring: Taylor Russell (no relation), Deborah Ann Wall, Logan Miller, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani, Jay Ellis

From: Columbia

I was relieved this was not a waste of time: 

If I had seen any Saw movies in my life then I'd compare this to that. As I haven't...

As I hadn't seen a theatrical movie for a few weeks and this was the movie that fit best with my schedule and next month I should be seeing some of the prestige pictures... I heard some good things about this movie. Overall, I don't regret using the A-List app on this film. While some things definitely could be nitpicked (and I am not even referring to like how in the Saw movies all of these rooms must cost a fortune to construct), overall it was an enjoyable enough time.

Escape Rooms have been a hot concept the past few years, the ability to engage in something physical with your friends as you try to solve puzzles and riddles and hopefully the theme of the game is worthwhile. I've never participated in one myself but I know plenty of people who have. I also understand that this is not the first time in the past few years to have an escape room theme but considering that this was a recent revelation (someone on a forum mentioned this) and I don't even know the names of those flicks, most will presume that this was the first one.

Anyhow, as the (probably revealing too much) trailer showed, some random people were chosen to participate in an escape room, only this one is deadly and the rooms are based on bad things that happened in each person's life, so it's only random in that none of these participants knew each other. Now, let me mention some negatives. The movie sure did telegraph more than it should have, some recent movie tropes were featured that I don't love-even if one was subverted-and I'll say it did not stick the landing when it comes to the ending. Even if it's not 100% true, I'll just blame Sony as it seems like stupid Hollywood studio notes to have those elements in this picture.

Thankfully, even with those moments I did like the movie overall. I was not familiar with most of the main cast (Tyler Labine being the exception, and it was nice seeing him on the big screen again) but they all were fine, especially Taylor Russell (no relation) as someone who is the keystone role... as she is the only one on the official poster, that is not really a spoiler. While over the top, the setpieces of the different rooms are all fun in their own ways and it was nice seeing everyone work together to solve the puzzles, & each character gets at least one moment to shine. There is bickering, but it was far from constant and that was a relief, as that would have gotten old pretty quickly. A big relief was that overall, all the main characters were fine and not an irritant in the wrong way; it was easy to have empathy for them.

Plus, there is an ever-popular synth score and that was a pleasant surprise. One of the rooms features a real old song from the early 60's; I am not sure how many here were familiar with it beforehand, but I certainly was, even if I hadn't heard it in many, many years. This wasn't originally going to be a January genre release, yet I was still worried as January genre releases in recent years sometimes includes absolute dreck like The Bye Bye Man. I was relieved then that even with the issues I already mentioned, that Escape Room was more fun than expected and not a film I regret seeing theatrically.