It’s pretty impressive this movie was not only able to make a popular trend seem like the worst possible way to spend time with friends and family but also created an absolute piece of garbage with just 90 minutes to work with. Sometimes when you are scouring the depths of Netflix, you find a diamond in the rough. Sometimes that leads to a good movie review. Unfortunately, Netflix also provides colossal cinematic abominations of biblical proportions. Whatever that means. Fortunately, we provide eloquently-written Movie Reviews for both the good and the bad. That way, you can decide ahead of time if you want to watch the movie or not. Take this Escape Room Movie Review as a warning to literally do anything else but watch this movie.
The first 30 seconds of a movie will sometimes determine whether it will be good or bad. In this case, Escape Room took about 5 seconds before “I’ve made a huge mistake” kicks in. It’s like watching any of the Saw series but not good. Granted, that franchise sort of slipped up a bit by making 35 sequels, but it’s still quite good. With Escape Room, it’s a constant blend of “why did that happen?” and “why did it take so long for that to happen?”. Yes, that also applies to character development. The basic premise of Escape Room is the combination of poor decision making and a lot of B-roll footage. Seriously. It’s a solid 20 minutes of a camera panning around streets and looking at skyscrapers.
A group of friends goes to a secret escape room because the girlfriend of the main character was captivated by a piece of junk mail. After a dinner scene that does more for character development than the entire rest of the movie combined, the group ventures into a van driven by (I think?) the villain of the movie. Once the friends reluctantly give up their phones after an awkward amount of dialogue, the girlfriend breaks character for a few fleeting lines to act mysterious. As if it adds excitement or tension to the backstory. She found this secret escape room without any Social Media or even the help of the Intenet! All she needed to do was visit a website to register her friends and transfer a wildly unnecessary amount of money. I won’t even challenge that logic. It’s not worth it.
*Editor’s Note: Hi. If you are enjoying what you are reading, please consider Liking and Sharing with your friends. It really helps me out!*
So the friends end up in a Saw-like room where they have to work together to solve a puzzle. This immediately results in conflict amongst the group. After a few sexual innuendos proves to be an insufficient amount of gratuitous sex-adjacent content, it is revealed one member of the team is naked whilst in a cage. This was likely to help increase the rating of the movie from PG to R in an effort to appeal to a wider audience of people who enjoy terrible movies. I guess on that level, this movie was a roaring success. Room-by-room, puzzle-by-puzzle, the amount of surviving members of the group get smaller. They meet their demise in the most inconvenient and seemingly random ways. Without giving away too many details, someone’s least favourite song bites off someone else’s arm. Almost literally.
Just when you think the movie might be over because someone escapes, a plot twist takes place. I should clarify: it’s less of a plot twist and more of a predictable but completely random ending that leaves more questions than answers. It’s sort of how Circle just kind of ends but also sets itself up for either a sequel or at least a “makes you think” ending. The difference is this one is totally unresolved and yet seems to completely resolve itself. It’s a real ‘make you stand up from the edge of your seat and say “…what?”‘ kind of ending. And really, aren’t those the best kind?
Escape Room Movie Review Final Thoughts
Overall, Escape Room was horrendous. In contrast, this Escape Room Movie Review was…well…the movie was still worse, okay?
