Escape Room

The story was nothing special, rather weak and the plot was never exciting, rather boring. Overall a weak B-movie.

I can only guess they didn't have enough money to shoot everything in the script as it felt like watching one of these kind of films with a dozen or so scenes edited out.

The production values, photography and sets were pretty good for this but largely it seemed the writing let this film down.

I watched all the way through expecting a plot of some kind to develop but it never really did.

Early on a character is introduced and a big thing is made of them leaving, we never see or hear from them again, okay a red herring perhaps, but what spend five minutes of the film on it. Things go along pretty much in this fashion until the end credits.

The puzzles were mostly not very puzzle like and the fact that the characters guessed and solved what some of them were at all didn't seem very realistic at all other than it being the only way to move the film along.

The ending left several loose ends and was ultimately completely unfulfilling.

For some reason Escape Rooms seem to be a thing, and I don't just mean out in the real world. The fad has inspired film makers and across 2 years we've had at least 4 movies with them at the core and 3 of them were simply called Escape Room. Original stuff huh!

This is the second of four that I've watched, the first being from the same year and starring Skeet Ulrich/Sean Young. That one was a tad better than this effort.

For those of you unfamiliar with an Escape Room it's a tourist attraction where a group of people are locked in a room (Or series of) and have to look at their surroundings solving puzzles in order to escape within an assigned time.

Here we see a group of friends participate in one for someones birthday and the experience gradually goes from fun to lethal. Whereas the Ulrich movie was supernatural this goes in more of a Saw (2004) direction.

Though the concept is sound the execution is rather lacking. Sure it looks the part but the delivery and the threat is poorly paced and the characters are simply not likeable. They range from obnoxious to blatantly bad folk that you can't exactly cheer on.

To make matters worse the movie fizzles out at the end. I believe a finale can make a terrible film suddenly great or a great film suddenly terrible. This made an average film, even more average.

The Good:

Solid concept

A few interesting puzzles

The Bad:

Naff deaths

Culminates in very little

I can appreciate what the writer was trying to do by setting up the characters and their failings but things do drag on. Putting cellphones in a box becomes its own scene. Long. Things are a bit better in the escape room but it leaves so many whys? Why? Then you sorta don't care.

Some people go to an escape room but soon it becomes apparent that it is a tad more deadly than the brochure made out.

This starts off quite well with the characters working through the puzzles whilst some relationship issues simmer in the background.

This I found interesting and good fun.

Then the Saw type traps get sprung.

From here on in it is just boring.

The previous issues between the characters lose all their currency as now people are just trying to avoid a grizzly death.

There are still puzzles to solve but now the women are all hysterical and weepy, the men are all aggressive and irrational - yawn - yawn -yawn.

The ending is just odd and made very little sense.

Seemingly as an after thought there is some nudity in the end of the film that was again just odd.

I am never one to sniff at a beautiful woman running around naked but even I found myself asking why?

I think this would have been better if it had toned down the slasher element and gone with something a little less bloody but more restrained.