If you haven’t heard about escape rooms, they are a popular and“fun” form of entertainment in which people work together in themed rooms with puzzles to try and get out. It was only a matter of time before Hollywood took this concept to the absolute extreme. This is actually the 3rd film in less than 3 years called “Escape Room” each one of them done as a single standalone film. The 1st one has more of a “Saw” gore fest vibe it is available on VidAngel. I didn’t watch the 2nd mainly due to the trailer not selling me on it, it looked like it was more of a supernatural slasher.
The new one given the PG-13 rating is more of a thriller. It’s exactly what you’d expect. Six random people are brought together and challenged to make it out of a series of complex, intense and insane escape rooms. The winner… supposedly… gets $10,000. This time around most of the participants don’t really want to be here and they are pretty much getting under each others skin.
The cast is mostly unknowns apart from Deborah from “Daredevil”. The 1st room is based on heat, 2nd is cold; my favorite is the 3rd Upside-down room where Deborah gets to shine. The director Adam Robitel (of “Insidious: The Last Key”) does a lot of cool camera work here.
The film is a PG-13 mash up of “Cube” and “Saw”. There’s an evil mastermind behind it all, watching their every move and they soon discover this is not just a game. The film actually gets off to a mind-boggling start by giving away a major “surprise” in the first 3 minutes. But what threw me off was the ending, it kind of came out of left field and felt like a different director just took over and gave it a cliffhanger ending setting it up for a franchise.
“Escape Room” clocks in at 100 minutes, though it feels much shorter. It has an interesting premise and some twists but the ending was off.
Rated PG-13 for terror/perilous action, violence, some suggestive material and language
REVIEW SCORE/ C
