The moment Escape Room delves too deep into the emotional minefield of its characters’ pasts, the distraction is too weighty for the narrative to bear.
Genre is a trap. A sub-genre that os tasted success is a far more effective trap. Not that working within it does not offer its rewards. But it always extracts its pound of flesh. Director Adam Robitel would know.
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For Escape Room bears the marks of his creative struggle within the walls of genre, which keep closing in on him slowly and steadily throughout the film. It is a fate that he shares with the characters of his film: six strangers who walk into an escape room to play a game, lured by the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The game soon turns deadly. They realise they are not just playing for a few thousand dollars. But for their lives. None of this will appear new to anyone who has watched Saw, Cube, The Belko Experiment or the scores of films from the strangers-in-a-room horror sub-genre. These films thrive on the sadistic pleasure derived from seeing people turn into the worst versions of themselves for, in the words of Jason, a character from the film, “survival of the fittest”. Schadenfreude aside, these films run the risk of being awfully predictable, which could turn away a substantial chunk of the audience. But what they have going for them is the opportunity presented for a meticulous construction of the ‘maze’ the characters must find their way out of. If they manage to be a whole lot of fun while at it, you are guaranteed a good time at the movies. Escape Room is good fun for a majority of its runtime, especially considering that Robitel has been tasked with making a PG 13 film within this genre. So blood and gore, often crucial to the sub-genre, are out. Granted, the characters might just have been borrowed from other films. They even have an Indian-American all-knowing nerd gamer who bemoans that none of the others seem to want to have fun. Then there is the Hollywood version of the strong female, in this case a war veteran. A socially awkward genius girl, an alcoholic loser, a stiff financial trader and finally, the over-friendly creep. Once all the boxes for stereotypes have been ticked, Robitel hurls his characters from one escape room full of perils to the next, leaving them to use their wits, and each other, to survive. The rooms boast of exceptional production design, surreal and immersive. The puzzles and clues vary in degrees of cleverness and challenge. They might not be ingenious. But they’re definitely fun. Here and there, one notices Robitel trying to push against the limitations of genre. That is precisely where the cracks in his otherwise fun film start showing. Look, this is not The Thing. Originality in Escape Room begins and ends with the design and construction of the rooms. But Robitel strives hard to make room for his own voice within the walls that are destined to close in on him. Take, for instance, the repeated references to the Quantum Zeno Effect. It postulates that a system cannot change while it is being observed. It also shapes the destiny of the characters who are the subject of a cruel experiment themselves, which is in turn is being viewed by us. There are similar references to the relationship between the game and the players, the game and the game master. Robitel spends a lot of time on the character who attempts to hack the game without paying heed to the rules. He tries to draw parallels between the game and the act of creation. Sadly, most of these ideas are scattered randomly within a schlocky story that would have been better off without their insertion into its structure. For Escape Room works best as a fun B-movie. The moment it delves too deep into the emotional minefield of its characters’ pasts, the distraction is too weighty for the narrative to bear. Like most movies of this sub-genre, Escape Room has its highs and lows. The lows start kicking in with alarming frequency towards the end, where the studio’s hitherto invisible hand wantonly starts pushing the director into setting up a sequel. As long as the characters are thrown from one room to the next, it is all fun and games. This demands a considerable suspension of reality from the viewer. That is fine as long as the flip side of Robitel’s keenness to leave his mark on the genre does not show its face. His dilemma regarding the apt approach to the material at hand is the undoing of the film, but not without offering the odd awkward, thoughtful pause. But then there is only so much you can expect from a film full of puzzles and games that begins with the shot of a chess set. Rating: **1/2
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