Escape Room review: We have been here before. A collection of diverse strangers – or walking character tropes – that find themselves stuck together in a trap that disguised itself as an opportunity for a better life, who must now face terrifying odds to survive at the hands of The Man (quite literally always an evil, and discerningly monotone, man). Escape Room, as a purebred spawn of greater examples of its genre, is a healthy delivery. A solid entry into the less 18-rated versions of lure-them-in-and-kill-them-off thrillers that will sit well with fans and entertain them anew.
Sony Pictures
For one thing, the actors are talented and well-cast, which always helps but can’t always be said for these movies. Taylor Russell leads the charge with slightly more of the screen-time as the shy clever-clogs student Zoey. Russell is a gratifying, grounding screen presence who does most of the emotional heavy lifting and does it superbly. Alongside Zoey there is the depressive alcoholic, Ben (Logan Miller), schmoozy business mogul Jason (Jay Ellis), big retired softie Mike (Tyler Labine), a brittle ex-veteran Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), and endearing geek and Escape room fanatic Danny (Nik Dodani). Although their characters are far from blessed, the performers are surely so – with likability and chemistry that makes them, already witty, the interplay of dialogue and quick character building flow rivetingly in the opening scenes. And a good thing too, because these people are stuck together.
It’s all because they have all solved an anonymously delivered puzzle box and won a ticket to take part in the Escape Room, every invite tailored to their own insecurities (reclusive Zoey is invited to step out of her comfort zone, while Jason and Amanda are more interested in an apparent cash prize). Coming together from different corners of the city to a sprawling, abandoned warehouse complex for what they assume will be simple game, they, and we, quickly learn something might be amiss when the proceedings heat up. The waiting room is locked behind them and transforms into a slow deathtrap that they must manoeuvre their way out of it before they’ve barely said hello.
This breakneck sense of pace makes for a rollicking first half, and the film really finds sure footing in the execution (no pun intended) of the rooms. At least they know what audiences have really come for. Some rooms are a lingering stage for tension, and some are immediately desolating. The first two, in particular, are nerve-shredding delights, and although the play-out can be a bit by-the-numbers, with deaths foreseeable before they’ve begun, at least each challenge offers up something of a unique garnish to predictable courses. All the puzzles are genuinely clever, and the rooms, if not always super scary, are consistently a triumph of production design – with alpine cabins and American diners fashioned into nightmares where temperature, gravity, music, space, time and even wallpapering are utilised as tools for chaos.
Unfortunately, both the rooms and the characters start off more intriguing than they end up. There is a fascinating common thread that links each person together (for they were not brought to the escape rooms at random after all) but we’ve even seen that before, courtesy of films like Final Destination, and the poignancy of this twist is diluted by the fact that the film at one point gives up on the subtle art of implications and flashbacks and just has them all blurt out their pasts to each other in a sweaty exposition dump.
Most disappointingly, the screenplay doesn’t so much come up with a finish but pinball between three, bizarrely disparate ones. Each is so forcefully ‘shocking’ it hurts a little bit, and as contenders for the finale of a decently clever film, they only cheapen it. It may not be the only time the writers have seemingly rehashed old ideas, but it’s perhaps in these moments that they drop the ball in doing them any justice at all, instead just offering up lukewarm servings of endings done better somewhere else.
In fact, the last three scenes seem the likeliest result of Bragi F Schut and Maria Melnik spinning a wheel of Hollywood twists and exclaiming ‘hold my beer, I’ll do em ‘all’. Each over-excitedly interrupts before the prior scene has time to play out to full potential, and they become increasingly jarring until you feel more like you’re playing different routes of Bandersnatch (or pick your favourite multi-choice game) than actually watching a narrative resolve.
Like the protagonists, who are struggling to endure through the worsening situations with clear heads, you sense the filmmakers contended with something similar when wrapping up the puzzles and plot details of their own design – faltering, as things progress, not so much in energy or determination but in common sense.
It has a note-perfect cast, neat ideas and a wickedly fun middle that even flashes with brilliance. But by the time of the (actual) conclusion, there’s a bewildering feeling that there occurred a behind the scenes scrabble that could rival the manufactured panic of the escape rooms; with storytellers grasping at a good, solid way out, but only, in their haste, muddling themselves further.
Escape Room previews in cinemas on Saturday 26th January before opening nationwide on 1st February.
