Disclaimer: The views expressed here are mine alone and do not represent those of allgames.com.
Introduction to Escape Room Movie Review by Ms. H
When I saw the movie poster for the Escape Room film a few months ago, I was curious as to what the movie was all about. I came to the conclusion that puzzles would be involved because puzzle pieces appeared on one of the main actor’s faces on the promo poster. However, when I actually walked into the movie theater and took my seat -- I did not know what to expect from this movie. Did I like what I saw? Check out my movie review to find out.
Note: There are a number of spoiler alerts in my movie review, so if you plan to see Escape Room, I recommend you see it first before reading my review any further.
Plot of Escape Room
Of late, some movies seem to be going back to the previous years’ playbook where someone can watch an entire movie and find out the actions taking place on screen did not actually take place in the story as shown. For instance the story you thought you were watching was either the product of some one’s imagination, a dream, flashback, etc. Think of movies such as a Beautiful Mind, the Recruit, Tully and many others.
Spoiler alert: This is true for the movie Escape Room. Unbeknownst to me -- I thought the events in the movie were actually taking place until the end when I found out maybe it was all someone’s imagination.
Back to the plot -- It looks like several people were sole survivors in catastrophic events. During certain parts of the film, you see a flashback of the actual incidents that happened where they were the only survivors. These sole survivors are beckoned to participate in the ultimate reality type game that involve escaping dangerous, life-threatening rooms -- under the guise of winning a prize of $10,000.
I could understand why two people were lured into this game -- the character who likes to solve puzzles, a mine worker, a veteran, and another who enjoyed games. However, it is an enigma to me why one person chose to participate -- but he did. This character was an executive played by Jay Ellis, who did not seem to be wanting for money. However, as the movie progresses, you may figure out that in many cases, he acted as the leader in the game, even though in some aspects he may have seemed crude and rude.
Acting Skills Displayed in Escape Room Movie
For the most part, the actors played their role adequately. One of the youngest actor, Taylor Russell who played the role of Zoey Davis began with a rocky start saying her lines -- but warmed up and got better as the movie progressed. Spoiler alerts: One of her best acting scenes was when she made a decision to physically destroy the cameras -- even though this could of course have been done by her stunt-double.
Conflict in the Escape Room Movie
As can be expected, with limited resources in these rooms, there was going to be a level of camaraderie as well as self-preservation and quest to survive. As the intensity of the escape room games increased, you may begin to wonder who will survive.
Were the Events in the Escape Room Movie Actually Happening?
This is the question you may ask yourself as the movie progresses. Spoiler Alert: During the end of the movie, it looks like the youngest member of the group survived and was trying to show the detectives where the events occurred. This scene gave me the impression that maybe the events did happen.
However, during the course of the movie, there were only two actual survivors of the game-- Taylor Russell’s and Nik Dodani characters. Spoiler alerts: During the final scenes, Taylor Russell’s character is trying to coax him to come with her to search for something or someone -- which I was unfortunately, not too clear on. So the question still stands, if the events shown in the movie really happened to the characters or was it all in someone’s imagination.
Spoiler alert: To add to the confusion, the movie ends with what looks to be an airplane disaster -- which in reality was an acting crew pretending that a disaster occurred. Go figure.
Assessment of the Escape Room Movie
Unfortunately, I’m unable to give the Escape Room a high rating. You may walk away from this movie with lots of questions. This may be frustrating to some and may be interesting to others. As for me, I am neutral on this movie and will leave it up to you if you want to watch it or not. Personally, I think a movie is worthwhile seeing when it is entertaining, suspenseful, informative, or add some type of value. I can only say that the movie Escape Room was at least suspenseful even it it was not all that entertaining to watch.
Based on a rating of 1 star to 5 stars with 5 stars being the highest, I rate the Escape Room movie 2 stars.