Escape Room focuses on six strangers - played by Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Tyler Labine, Jay Ellis, Nik Dodani, and Deborah Ann Woll - who receive invitations to take part in an escape room, with the chance to win $10,000. Though once the group actually begins playing, they realize that this is more than just an average escape room, and that it’s a series of rooms with obstacles that can result in their deaths. Now the group must deal with extreme conditions as they not only look to win, but fight for their lives as well.
When this movie begins, it focuses on one of the characters, played by Miller, in the middle of a room within this escape room. He’s running around and panicking, while exclaiming what he sees and how he feels to no one else around him, in a very hammy, over-the-top fashion. This essentially sets the stage for what ends up being one of this movie’s biggest problems. The acting by nearly every performer here is practically insufferable, and rarely ever feels believable.
Many of the lines feel like they’re just being recited, with characters constantly making bold, generic statements that are meant to come off as sounding more meaningful than they actually are. Part of this stems from the script and some of the terrible dialogue these actors have to work with. However, for the most part, the actors don’t seem to really care to do much with this material, giving the bare minimum to make it feel passable.
And what’s even more frustrating is that all of these characters are written so that they’re all polar opposite individuals, all fulfilling some generic character archetype. There’s no chemistry among any of them, nor do they really have anything about them that makes them interesting. Never do they feel like they truly come together and act like a cohesive unit that the audience can truly care about. Most of this film consists of them arguing, and it happens almost as soon as they first meet. And it never feels truly warranted, like the movie is creating conflict for the sake of conflict, and it becomes difficult to buy into any of it as being believable, often feeling contrived.
Deborah Ann Woll is one of the only exceptions to the rule, and really manages to have a commanding presence in each of her scenes. She’s probably the only one who never diverges into campy over-acting, never feeling like she’s just reciting dialogue. And when she gets to lead a scene, these wind up being the most engaging moments. Tyler Labine is also fairly enjoyable, having a naturally likable energy to him that makes it easy to get invested in what he does. It’s just unfortunate that he gets very little to do here.
As far as seeing them all in action when it comes time for them to actually escape, it’s a mixed bag. At first, the rooms are somewhat enjoyable, with rooms centered around heat and around ice, among other things. There’s often a feel like it’s a tamer version of Saw, with even an aesthetic that’s reminiscent of horror films and thrillers of that time period. It feels overly familiar, but there’s a solid energy that, despite some of the horrid acting, can be engaging at times.
However, once the film moves into its third act, it quickly derails from tolerable to outright terrible. When it comes to confronting the main antagonist and everything that stems from it, it suddenly feels like a completely different movie. The film seems more concerned with wrapping things up as quickly as possible and moving on, rather than providing an emotionally satisfying ending. The pacing suddenly feels rushed and never really hones in on what’s supposed to be a big dramatic moment, and it becomes almost impossible to care for these characters who were already barely tolerable to begin with.
The antagonist is a mostly unseen character who’s only mentioned in passing a few times early on in the film, only appearing at the end, and is never truly built up into this menacing, looming threat. So when it comes time to deal with them, the satisfaction of seeing everyone come face-to-face with them is never truly felt, as the audience is never really given an opportunity to care about this unseen character who’s barely mentioned. Even when the motives are stated, they’re so quickly mentioned that they feel like an after-thought, as the film rushes through what’s supposed to be one of its biggest moments, leading to an ending that feels disinterested, confusing, and totally detached from the rest of the movie.
Escape Room is a manufactured product that feels derivative of much better thrillers that came before it. It focuses on a set of characters who are borderline insufferable to watch, most containing unlikable personalities, and portrayed by actors who - with the exception of Woll and Labine - feel like they don’t really care to be here. And while at first, it’s somewhat engaging to watch them escape these rooms, the film quickly crashes by the time it gets to its third act, with a finale so lazy and confusing, it feels like it just turned into a totally different movie and didn’t even care to let the audience know.
Recommendation: Kill It With Fire
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