Escape Room

Now that I have finished reviewing the movies that I saw over winter break I can catch up with the movies I've seen in the new year, the first of which was Escape Room.  It is not a great movie but I saw it at a late night screening with a rowdy crowd on opening weekend so I had a lot of fun watching it.  Six strangers are recruited to participate in a mysterious escape room for a chance to win $10,000:  Zoey (Taylor Russell), a painfully shy physics student, Ben (Logan Miller), a struggling alcoholic, Jason (Jay Ellis), a cocky stockbroker, Amanda (Deborah Ann Wolf) an Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD, Mike (Tyler Labine) a former coal miner, and Danny (Nik Dodani), a gaming enthusiast.  It begins as a ordinary game with complex puzzles to solve as they move from one elaborate room to the next.  However, each of them have secrets which are revealed in the puzzles and the consequences for not solving the puzzles in time are deadly.  As one survivor emerges from the final room, the purpose of the game is revealed.  As I mentioned, this is not a great movie but I didn't really expect it to be.  In fact, I actually liked it more than I thought I would because of the clever premise, the design of the rooms (especially the optical illusion room), as well as the tense and suspenseful action sequences.  The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is the ending because, not only does it slow down the action in an attempt to explain it all in some really clunky scenes, the explanation lacks any credibility and includes a groan-worthy cliffhanger (a blatant bid for a sequel).  This movie could have been so much better but it wasn't awful.  Take a group of friends to a late night screening for a fun night out.