Escape Room
Six strangers find themselves in a maze of deadly mystery rooms, and must use their wits to survive.
Cast
Taylor Russell – Zoey
Logan Miller – Ben
Deborah Ann Woll – Amanda
Tyler Labine – Mike
Jay Ellis – Jason
Nik Dodani – Danny
Yorick van Wageningen – The Gamemaster
A Second Experiment?
Escape Room is pure trash, to the point of being brilliant. The story is so predictable it will have most viewers hooked until the very end, regardless of whether or not they know what is about to happen. This is one of those ‘haven’t paid to watch it, love it’ type things you discover on Netflix where you stick around until the final showdown – because it’s just so watchable. Its winning element has to be the puzzle solving aspect with the participants moving around each room, discovering clues and using these to their advantage – as deadly traps are set off.
The variety of characters isn’t bad at all with personalities on totally different levels coming together to save themselves and each other. The Goonies meets Saw as this bunch of misfits swing, duck and dive through themed ‘rooms’ (they are more like warehouses) whilst trying not to get butchered – or killed – at the same time. The lead character – Zoey – is a pretentious irritant though, I’m certain some people will bloody detest the girl. Good performance though if she’s not like that in real life.
The finale of Escape Room is shockingly similar to that of The Belko Experiment (2016). The entire thing comes to a head with two of the players getting nastily tangled up in a fight between themselves, both desperate to reach the end of the game – as well as the exit. Although this echoes the carnage displayed in that 2016 flick, it’s what takes place during the final few minutes that is almost identical to the office block thriller. This could easily be some sort of sequel. But although the concept may be recycled, Escape Room makes a deliciously stupid movie of its own. Perhaps this theme is running throughout a particular string of movies, and this is just the second experiment – knowing the state of Hollywood – in a very long line.
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