Given its promising concept and premise, Escape Room would still spark the interest of many viewers with its above average genre delights.
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Given its growing popularity around the world, escape room presents an immersive experience where participants are locked in an enclosed room where they attempt to solve puzzles for a way out. This provided a great premise for a film adaptation, which would be released this week in theatres.
Intriguingly uncanny, the release of Adam Robitel’s Escape Room would come right after the recent tragedy in Poland where five teenage girls perished in the fire while playing the game. This might heighten awareness of the game and the film in some form.
Not deviating from its core objectives, the film made a good move to focus on setting up its six characters to become participants. The screenplay by Bragi Schut and Maria Melnik didn’t plant narrative deadweights to allow the film to thrill. As the film approached the last of its escape rooms, it then became apparent that the underlying story about some mysterious organisation in an attempt to test the limits and probability of human survival was too weak for a cult following.
Aside from its questionable overarching storyline, Escape Room nevertheless delivered well as a genre production with a thrilling experience for the audience. With two-thirds of the 100-minute running time spent on having characters finding clues to solve their way out of numerous escape rooms, much of the satisfaction had to come from the detailed design of not just the puzzles but also the various game environment.
Opening with an elaborate escape room scene with one of the characters, it might remind some viewers of genre films like Saw with its similar concept of characters negotiating their way out of delicately designed traps. Saw was successful not just for its concept, but also for its traps (such as the reverse bear trap). Time would tell if any of the escape rooms in Robitel’s film would be as highly referred.
With the escape room mysteries, it wouldn’t be that enjoyable if not for some of the onscreen characters’ performance. A teenage brilliant student Zoey (Taylor Russell) who was regarded by peers as an introvert in school would be an unconventional heroine.
Given its promising concept and premise, Escape Room would still spark the interest of many viewers with its above average genre delights. There would still be hope for the filmmakers to address its shortcoming through a planned sequel with its cliffhanging conclusion.
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