Aright so to start off if you are trying to convince a group of friends to go to an escape room with you do not take them to see this movie. Do not do it, it will just become another excuse for your friends to not go.
Now to the movie. Normally movies that based off a concept like an escape room, (you know the ones where there is a popular thing and they make a movie based off that thing, kinda like battleship) are not that great. Normally there is a poor plot and it comes off as half thought out and more of a cash grab. Well Escape Room is not one of those movies. it's more of the take something popular and turn it scary cash grab movies, which I have no problem with. Escape Room reminded me of the Saw movie where the group of people are locked in together and if they work together they could all survive. This movie doesn't design rooms that have hard to solve puzzles, instead it focuses on creating puzzles that force tension between the characters. The first few rooms it does an excellent job of creating a tension between the participants as they figure out how to move from room to room.
Unfortunately, the movie makes a left turn as it is entering its final act, more for the purpose of setting up future movies, than the story telling purposes I think, which takes away from the overall feel of the movie. It falls into the trap like most horror movies, including Saw 5, of killing characters off one by one and it becomes a predicable who is going to die next type of deal. The movie introduces a reason for why the participants were selected and it was a lot better when you thought these were just random people. Does the first 75 minutes or so provide enough entertainment that the collapse of the last half won't matter, well if you enjoy horror/suspense movies you will probably enjoy this one and if they are not your thing this is not the movie to change your mind.
I think the best way to describe this movie is to say it is saw 5 without the Karmer/Hoffman backstory and way less gore. The puzzles are not going to stump the audiance even if you are not paying attention but that was not the point of the movie. Would it have been better if the puzzles were harder and the focus was not killing off characters to set up the ending and instead focused on them working to keep most of the original group alive. Yeah, maybe but it is easy to follow an already established formula and make it work.
3.5 Stars out of 5 . If Jigsaw was a billionaire this is what his traps would look like!
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