This was fun and suspenseful. The characters are written in a very basic way, but just enough to move along with the plot.

The most annoying character was the businessman. It's unrealistic that a person in that position wouldn't know how to talk to other humans. In general, the writers had characters say things that made so little sense. For example, the businessman made a comment about "survival of the fittest," after one of their friends had died, except she died sacrificing herself. One of the characters corrects him on that, and so then he says let's not waste her sacrifice. Ok, that line makes sense, but why would he even say that first line in the first place?

There was another part where the businessman tried to insinuate that another character had caused the death of another. So that character the starts defending himself, and the businessman cuts him off and says to forget all that and to get back on task or something. Wait, YOU'RE the one that just accused him of MURDER, what do you mean "forget all that," ***you're the one that brought it up.***

The biggest thing that annoyed me was the way the girl reacted at the end when she went with the police back to the initial escape room, which is now in a completely burned up state since that's how they left it originally (it burned up after they left). She storms in and starts frantically talking about how this was the lobby, and how such and such was over here, and just going on and on. Let me break this down....

* First off, why is she so SURPRISED that the room looks like this now?? How's it supposed to look? You have no idea exactly what happened to the place after you and your friends crawled through the duct. But, you have some idea that it probably burned right? Then.....how is the way the room looks now NOT consistent with that? In other words, what is it about the way the room looks now that immediately triggered her alarm bells that "omg, someone is trying to cover their tracks by making it look like the escape room never existed and that I'm crazy." What are you talking about, this looks EXACTLY the way I'd expect an escape room to look after an inferno had gone through it. And if she didn't know that an inferno had gone through it, then she has even less reason to be surprised about the way it looks now since she has no idea what happened to it after they left. It looks like a crazy room where crazy stuff happened. Her reaction would've made more sense if the place had been in *pristine* condition.

* She's frantically going on and on about what the room looked like as if someone had already doubted her. No one had even said anything yet, and she's already reacting like her story is suspicious, trying with all her might to convince people that for all she knew, already believed her.

* When she does mention some area of the room and what it used to be, the policeman IMMEDIATELY says there's no evidence of that. So that's it. You're not going to ask any questions, you just immediately assume she must be crazy?

It's really not that hard to write good dialogue. Yes, it's hard to write a story, but dialogue isn't hard. You just picture what a normal human being would say given that circumstance, however fantastical or not.

The story is simple, the acting is very average, except for Taylor Russell. There is good suspense and adequate thrill. A great movie for munching on popcorn and passing the time.

ESCAPE ROOM is a generic kind of thriller that trades on the newfound popularity of thriller experiences, in which a group of friends willingly allow themselves to be locked in escape rooms before solving puzzles to facilitate their escape. A real-life CRYSTAL MAZE, if you will. I've seen a previous and very similar B-movie that wasn't very good, but this one is more mainstream and bigger budgeted, so there's more emphasis on effects. I found it quite similar to that '90s cult classic CUBE, although of course nowhere near as good, lacking as it does interesting characters and only tending to generate a minimum of suspense despite all the screaming and shouting.