Escape Room

Director: Adam Robitel
Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Wohl, Jay Ellis, Tyler Labine, Nik Dodani, Yorick van Wageningen
Running Time: 100 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★)

The Game meets Saw meets Final Destination in director Adam Robitel's 2019 horror thriller, Escape Room, a mostly successful attempt to cinematically translate the growing cultural popularity of a craze where players must work their way out of an enclosed maze via puzzles and clues. It's ripe material for a movie and screenwriters Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik wisely realize such a premise exploits what audiences most want from their entertainment experience: Ordinary people being placed in dangerous and mysterious circumstances with seemingly no way out. Executing such an idea to its maximum potential is another matter entirely, but this is definitely the genre it always seems to work best in. 

Of those aformentioned titles, it most closely resembles the Saw series, or at least the first few films, before the producers lost interest in delivering anything resembling a coherent story in favor of escalating the graphic traps. Being that this is PG-13, there's very little in the way of "torture porn" here, which works to its favor, allowing it to channel some of the better psychologically suspenseful elements of that 2004 original, transporting us to a simpler time when two strangers being locked in a room was enough of a starting point. The only thing missing just may have been Tobin Bell, who you half-expect to show up, alerting us that this was in fact the reboot we hoped would eventually arrive.

Shy college physics student Zoey (Taylor Russell), wealthy stock trader Jason (Jay Ellis), grocery stockboy Mike (Logan Miller), truck driver Mike (Tyler Labine), Iraq war veteran Amanda (Deborah Ann Wohl) and nerdy escape room ethusiast Danny (Nik Dodani) are each gifted a mysterious puzzle cube containing an invitation to participate in an escape room with a $10,000 winning prize. After arriving at an unknown office building waiting room to receive instructions from the Gamesmaster, they're surprised to discover their game has already begun. And it's a deadly one. 

With a series of rooms containing few safeguards and seemingly constructed by someone with intimate knowledge of all the players' personal lives, it's set up to prey on their strengths and weaknesses. As they progress from room to the next, risking their lives in the face of increasing danger, it becomes a battle for survival with not only the unseen Gamesmaster, but the other strangers with whom they're competing. Hardly a random selection of participants, it soon becomes apparent that they're all there for a reason. But with only one winnner, the rest of them may not live to discover what that is. 

This is an admittedly cheesy premise, but a great one nonetheless. The early set-up scenes do come off  as a far less sophisticated take on David Fincher's The Game, as the eventual participants (all carrying a variety of personal baggage) receive this mysterious "gift" from an anonymous corporation. As we know, this is never good, but always fun to watch, as we're gradually introduced to their wildly different personalities and histories when the game begins. Everyone fits a certain type and while everyone in the cast does a better than serviceable job, it's tough to pin down a particular performance of note in a movie consisting entirely of functional roles, similar in that they're all constantly in a state of emotional and physical distress. 

It's plainly evident from the opening scenes that introverted bookworm Zoey is being established as the heroine, or "final girl," which isn't to say she necessarily makes it to the end since the script actually does subvert expectations considerably. As the brainiac, she's the voice of reason, always coming through at the right moment with valuable information to get them to the next stage. Of course, the plot wouldn't be complete without that one guy. You know the one. The wealthy, entitled, ultra-competitive alpha who believes this is survival of the fittest and isn't about to lose under any circumstances. He's played by Jay Ellis with a little more restrant than we're used to. If there's a guilty pleasure performance in the bunch, it's Logan Miller's dazed, strung-out store clerk who delivers a seemingly endless supply of wide-eyed craziness with each interaction he has with the various players. 

The action rarely takes a breather as they traverse the rooms, some of which are more inventive than others, but all equally dangerous, whether resulting in potential death by fire, hypothermia or poisoning. And from a production design standpoint, more than a few of them are really visually impressive, such as an upside-down billiards bar and a trippy, hallucinogenically inspired setting complete with some warped-out optical illusions.

The inventively different ways in which the characters are eliminated, their backstories, and the revelation as to why they were selected is definitely reminiscent of The Final Destination series. But at least when the eventual explanation is given, it's relatively simple and logically delivered. Too often movies like this make their reveals too complicated, so it was a relief to see this one deliver that information in a single, unfussy sequence that doesn't overstay its welcome or get bogged down with too many details. At least until the very end.

Leaving little to the imagination in terms of how this mysterious corporation operates, the writers do seem determined to pull back the curtain as far as possible when less would be more. We even get a somewhat underwhelming appearance from someone who actually makes the organization seem slightly less threatening than we had built up in our minds. The last act of a high concept thriller like this is crucial since it's tough to name many that have gotten it completely right, but Robitel does deserve a pat on the back for making it all the way through without botching it as badly as others.

A lot of what goes down is smart, until it goes a little deeper than it should in emphasizing that this project has legs that go beyond the credits. We already know it does, so the final minutes are slightly worrisome in terms of how they're planning to move forward with this prospective mini-franchise. It takes skill to craft an effective popcorn-style thriller just once, so even if there's good reason to be optimistic, churning out inferior follow-ups can easily land it on the list of failed horror franchises best appreciated for their first entry. Despite the closing minutes oversharing exactly how much potential the idea has, I'd still gladly watch an Escape Room sequel that promised to be as fun as this.