Escape Room Review

Escaping prison is easier than sitting through this film.

January is known for being the write off month in Hollywood. People are recovering from Christmas. It’s freezing outside. People would rather watch Bird Box on Netflix than go to the cinema. This is the month which normally contains the films which will feature in many peoples worst of the year list. Cast your minds back to January of 2018.  The first big release of the year was Insidious: The Last Key. We were also gifted classics like The Commuter, 12 Strong and The Maze Runner: The Death Cure. The debates over these masterpieces continue to this very day. Come next week everything is going to go back to normal. There is going to be a blockbuster released pretty much every week. I’m going to be typing more than ever before and wishing that I had a week like this one to breath. This week we are tackling 2019’s most anticipated film; Escape Room. Truth be told I didn’t know anything about the film heading into it. Besides that, it’s a horror film. A PG13 horror film in January? Could this beat all the odds and be decent? Of course not. What I got instead was a film so stupid, dumb and downright idiotic. That I kind of respect it for being such a mess.

Escape Room is about exactly what it says on the tin. Six strangers find themselves in a room which they must escape from. If they do so than they win $10,000. Not everything is at it seems. Cue spooky hijinks. This film should have been easy to write. I’m not a screen writer or anything but I’m pretty sure I could have made this easy to follow. You need to have a room filled with puzzles. Have characters who relate to these puzzles and use their life experience to crack them. Introduce an element of mystery which will keep the audience guessing until end. Maybe one of the characters in the film is secretly plotting against the rest? As I said I don’t write films. This one seems straight forward to get a rhythm going. Escape Room has one of the most unnecessarily complicated plots I’ve seen in a while. The film is determined to try and drag about every scenario for all its worth. A dilemma which would take about 3-4 minutes to solve in any other film. Takes Escape Room 15-20 minutes to solve. The puzzles aren’t interesting enough to justify spending so much time with them. Later, in the film there are puzzles to solve which when are first presented grab your attention. I was sitting in the cinema intrigued by how they would get out of certain situations. Unfortunately, the writers came up with their puzzles without having an answer for how to solve them. The solutions to the mysteries in Escape Room get dumber and dumber as the film goes on. If you’re watching the film worrying that you missed a clue which leads to the plot advancing. Don’t worry you didn’t! Escape Room is just making it up as it goes along.

The first step to making a good movie is by filling it with memorable characters. In a film like Escape Room you’re spending 100 minutes solely with the main cast. With no subplots it’s vital that director Adam Robitel creates characters who will carry the film. You’re going to have to want these characters to escape after all. The characters in this film are one note stereotypes who are just mean. Every character in this film made me feel bad about myself. Even the sympathetic characters were jerks. I didn’t want any of them to escape. I wanted them to sit in a room and discuss why are they so mean to everyone. The only thing that was compelling about them was their dialogue. No, it wasn’t good dialogue. I just got excited by what bad line they would drop next. The only way to express my anger is by bringing back my Oceans great or Oceans Grating character ranking system. I proudly present to you…..

Would I want to want to escape a room with this person?

·        Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell): The protagonist of the film when we meet her is a shy girl whose anxiety gets the better of her. The Escape Room competition provides her with a means of making friends. Zoey comes out of her shell and starts cracking some jokes. Or more so ganging up on two of the other characters. At least she’s trying. At this point I would have been happy to escape a room with her. The character goes in a direction in the final act which turns her into a wild card. Her unpredictability is too much for me. I want to enjoy my Escape Room experience and not have to worry about someone trying to ruin the game on me.

·        Ben Miller (Logan Miller): Shaggy has found his actor for any upcoming Scooby Doo reboot. Ben smokes cigarettes. Ben has long hair which makes him different. Every other character is weary about Ben because he smokes. Ben is edgy. Ben believes that the Escape Room is all down to capitalism. Ben is the second most important character in the film. Ben has no character besides being so different. Ben doesn’t need to have personality traits. Ben smokes and wears a poncho.  Ben thinks everything is stupid. Ben thinks Escape Rooms are stupid. Liam and Ben would not be friends.

·        Danny Khan (Nik Dodani): The only thing we know about Danny is that he plays video games and is an Escape Room fanatic. For some reason these two things make him the punching bag in the film. I’d love to play Escape Room with Danny because the guy deserves a break. Danny asks Jason if he played some video game. Jason replies with “No I don’t play video games. I sleep with adult woman.”. No need for that. Danny was just making small talk. Everyone wailed on him through the entire film. Don’t worry Danny. I’ll be your friend.

·        Amanda Harper (Deborah Ann Woll): What do I know about this character. She’s ex-military so she’s a good team member. Amanda is the best at any of the physical challenges. What else do we know about her? Ahhhh she’s Karen in Daredevil. There’s no real personality in her character like any of the others. They all have their problems and stereotype. She’s just kind of there. Waiting patiently for something to do. Could we hold a conversation? Probably not. Would we escape the room? Yeah why not.

·        Jason Walker (Jay Ellis): The best character in the film! A decent character.  Jason is a rich businessman who craves personal success. There is a character here. I couldn’t believe my eyes while I was watching. Jason is a jerk. An intentional jerk unlike every other character. Would I escape a room with him? No way he wouldn’t want to share the honour with me. Would I watch Jay Ellis in another film? Absolutely. This guy has talent which is hidden by a crappy movie. I’m rooting for you Jay Ellis.

·        Mike Nolan (Tyler Labine): Tyler Labine is 40 years old in real life. Why is Mike made out to be in his mid-50’s. Everyone was talking about him like he was an old man. Even Mike made himself out to be from a completely different generation to Amanda and Jason who are both less than 5 years younger than him in real life. Mike seems like a good guy who I’d to love to have a beer with. We would never beat an Escape Room. At least, we would have a good time trying. Isn’t that the whole point of it all! Wait why? The point is to escape the room and everything else is irrelevant? Oh…

Director Adam Robitel has found his niche in Hollywood. Make low budget horror movies and release them when there is no big competition on the market. It may result in duds like Escape Room and his Insidious film but it’s working. Insidious 4 made $168 million off a $10 million budged. While Escape Room has made, at the time of writing, $55 million off a $9 million budget. Robitel isn’t making films which are inspiring in any way but he’s making his living. It’s a shame that he doesn’t use the low expectations to make something a bit more engaging. Escape Room is only enjoyable due to how daft it is. The premise is great. There’s so much potential for a decent film to come out of the Escape Room craze. Have a murderer in the room with everyone else. Give the audience characters to root for instead of bland stereotypes. The direction is bad. There’s nothing new on the table. One scene in particular tried to use what seemed to be Snapchat filters. One thing that’s genuinely great about the film is the Cinematography. There’re some genuinely great shots in this. Props to cinematographer Marc Spencer who’s continued his underrated work seen on Furious 7 and Lights Out. The script is one of the weaker ones you’ll see this year. Not one joke landed which lead to some awkward moments of dead silence in the cinema. The script was written by Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik. Schut’s last feature was the awful 2011 Nick Cage film Season of the Witch. This is Melnik’s first feature and when you’re working with a guy who hasn’t made a film since 2011. The script isn’t going to fare well

Escape Room is a film which wasted a brilliant premise. There was clearly no plan for the film. Sony bought the name and wanted a movie. It didn’t matter if the film was good or bad. The name is interesting enough to get people to watch it. Will anyone remember this is a few weeks? No that’s why they released it in January. In fairness, it’s the perfect film to make fun of with your friends after a couple of drinks. If that isn’t the most backhanded compliment, I’ve made than I don’t know what is. My advice is this. Wait for Escape Room to drop on Netflix. Get your friends together and have some fun with it’s daftness. No more January releases until next year. We’ve made it past the darkness people.

Liam’s Summary of Escape Room.

Best Moment: The unintentionally funny Snapchat Filter scene had me dying.

Worst Moment: A goddamn sequel tease. No don’t do this to me.

Best Character:  Jason is the only character in the film. He wins by default.

Worst Character: Everyone who picked on Danny. Or maybe Danny because he sucked.

Watch These Instead.

Saw: A horror film which takes its concept and runs a marathon with it.

It’s Always Sunny Season 13 Episode 2 ‘The Gang Escapes”: Escape Room done right.

Stan and Ollie: A January release which is worth your time any time of year.

Overall Rating: 1.5/5