Movie Review: “Escape Room” clearly has “franchise” on its mind

Movie Review: “Escape Room” (PG-13)

At a glance, the new thriller “Escape Room” plays like “Saw” light. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll also see shades of a couple of other popular horror titles. With it’s cynical glimpse at a disturbed sect of society willing to pay top dollar to take pleasure in witnessing the pain of others, one might be reminded of “Hostel,” and with it’s sole-survivor plot thread, “Final Destination” springs to mind. Further connecting “Escape Room” to the likes of “Saw” and “Final Destination” is the fact that this movie clearly has “franchise” written all over it. What truly separates “Escape Room” from the previously mentioned films, however, is a more tame PG-13 rating, meaning that this is about as mild as your average torture-porn film is going to get.

In “Escape Room,” six strangers are brought together after receiving puzzle-box invitations reminiscent of “Hellraiser” to a sort of amusement attraction that will test their smarts as much as it’ll test their endurance. What these strangers don’t initially realize, though, is that they all have something in common, and it is this plot hook that is at the very heart of a thriller that will have these individuals attempting to surmise whether or not the challenges and riddles they are navigating through are real or part of one hell of an elaborate hoax. David Fincher’s “The Game,” anyone?

“Escape Room” was directed by Adam Robitel (“Insidious: The Last Key”), and while this thriller does feel like it’s stitched together with elements of other noteworthy genre films, kudos are in order to this filmmaker for keeping this slick-looking movie coasting along at a brisk pace and for steering clear of the straight-up nihilism that you might expect. Yes, “Escape Room” gets a little ugly, but it isn’t all cynical gloom and doom. There are actually characters here who show a bit of compassion and look out for one another, and “Escape Room” even benefits from bursts of humor. Further props to the art direction team for putting together some pretty cool escape room designs for our human guinea pigs to try and fight their way out of, one of the coolest being an iced-over forest setting.

As for said guinea pigs, each of the six strangers tossed into these potentially dangerous scenarios bring his own specific character traits to the table, and the actors who play these characters (Taylor Russell, Jay Ellis, Logan Miller, Deborah Woll, Tyler Labine, and Nic Dodani) do an adequate job demonstrating the severity of their situation, most notably “True Blood” and “Daredevil” co-star Woll as a woman suffering from PTSD.

As for the plot, “Escape Room” certainly tends to stretch the bounds of credibility, particularly during the final act, and it isn’t always as straight-up intense as you might hope for. But again, this well paced movie does offer up a handful of thrills, and at the very least, it moves at a quick clip.

Furthermore, “Escape Room” refuses to spell everything out, opting instead to leave certain aspects of the goings on appropriately ambiguous. After all, this thriller is clearly looking towards the future, so it would be foolish to spell everything out so early in the game when it’s obvious that there’s no escaping the inevitable sequel. See you next year, everyone.

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