Six individuals had been mysteriously invited into the Minos Escape Room in Chicago, Illinois to play a special edition escape puzzle. Zoey was a physics nerd. Ben was a problematic grocery boy. Jason was a ruthless stock trader. Amanda was a soldier who did her tour of duty in Iraq. Mike was a former miner. Danny was an escape room fanatic. However, this was no ordinary escape room game. Each room had real extreme challenges which can actually lead to certain death if you cannot figure out how to get of it in time.
As someone who enjoys escape room activity now and then to whet my IQ, watching this film was a no-brainer. The moment the six main characters begin their first room, I was hooked into their dangerous adventure, trying to figure out the difficult puzzles given them. I thought the exciting editing of the scenes gave me (and other escape room fans) real escape-room vibes, with all the desperation and frustration and the hopelessness that came with it. Big difference though, this one had no friendly game-master with helpful hints.
Taylor Russell (as the shy genius Zoey Davis), Logan Miller (as the down-and-out loser Ben Miller), Deborah Ann Woll (as athletic but traumatized Amanda Harper), Tyler Labine (as the over-gregarious senior Mike Nolan), Jay Ellis (as arrogant hotshot Jason Walker) and Nik Dodani (as enthusiastically geeky Danny Khan) all did their jobs well to portray the various personalities and quirks which may annoy you or make you root for them.
Director Adam Robitel elected to use a frequently-seen sequencing technique where the story starts with an exciting scene somewhere towards the end of the story, then restarts with flashbacks of the events that led to the spine-tingling cliffhanger we saw at the start. I am not sure if this was a good idea since it was a bit of a mild spoiler. We not only get a sneak peek at the nature of the challenges in store for the participants, but also who will likely make it to the end.
I liked that there were no particularly famous actors in the cast, so that way we won't really know who will be dying first (as is the usual style in horror films involving motley groups of people trapped in one place). I sort of predicted, as I am sure many fans of this genre also did, that these six people were not exactly there together just by random chance. I liked how they built up to the big reveal. I liked that there is a much bigger story still waiting to unfold in a sequel or even a series. 7/10.
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