Happy New Year to you all and thanks for stopping by. My first review of 2019 is 'Escape Room' and it tells the story of six strangers brought together to participate in a series of puzzles disguised as ordinary rooms. The catch is that this game is to the death and once the deadly consequences become known, they'll have to each conquer their personal demons and win their freedom. If this sounds like 'Saw' to you folks, that's because it really is when you take the skeleton of the story. There have been many films like this even going back to the 90's with the Canadian cult favorite 'Cube' but does 'Escape Room' stand out? Not really, in fact its pretty paint by numbers when it comes to this type of movie, but I found myself surprised at how entertaining the ride was. Will I forget 'Escape Room' within a week? Most likely. Does that make it a bad film? Not exactly.
First thing I'd like to discuss are the characters, or rather caricatures posing as people. This is a pretty generic group for a survival thriller/horror film. You have the nerd, the quiet hero/heroine, the one who panics a lot, the asshole unlikely hero one, and of course the ruthless and violent one who betrays the group at some point. It's really a shame that some admittedly good actors are given these generic roles and even when the script gives us some back stories to develop them more, they are rushed and quickly glossed over in order to jump to the next room as fast as possible. Although I will say that when they reach the next puzzle, the pacing and tension is pretty well done for the most part. Having sat through two trailers and then this movie at the same time, I now find it funny as to why playing golden oldies music in horror films are scary. Anyway, for what the scenes are and even when you can likely figure out the end scenario to each one, they are pretty impressive.
And really, that's all there is to 'Escape Room' and really I was pretty bummed I couldn't find more to talk about. It's an above average popcorn fluff that will entertain you and then will likely leave your conscious soon after. For all the things it does right, it does equally wrong but for a horror/thriller coming out in January, believe me when I say that you could do far worse this time of year with the genre.
6/10
