Escape Room was directed by Adam Robitel, who also directed “Insidious: The Last Key,” “X-Men,” and many other thrillers. It was produced by Neal Moritz, who is the producer of the famous series of the “Fast and Furious” movies.

The plot of “Escape Room” is essentially what its title promises. In this movie, six individuals of varying backgrounds are invited for a chance to win $10,000—if they successfully escape the room. What they don’t know is that, at the very end, there is no escape.

Every room the six characters escaped from were meticulously designed to match the characters and the plot. Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll) was a veteran who is forced to fight her fears of fires in one of the rooms that quickly turned into an enormous oven. Others such as Jason (Jay Ellis) had to suffer once again from hypothermia in an artificially made room resembling the Arctic. As someone who can only withstand little gore in movies, this one came as a relief. Scenes of individuals dying weren’t shown and may have been what made this movie PG-13, rather than R-rated, which allowed the film to attract a wider audience.

Overall, this movie was exciting to watch. Escape rooms are slowly becoming a popular source of recreation for teenagers, and because a thriller movie embodying one was released, it immediately caught my attention. Although as much as I love the detective-ness of the movie, it would probably have been better if it had incorporated the audience into the problem-solving aspects. All we are looking at are people squirming around, looking for clues in order to escape death only to find out at the very end that it leaves us with what movie watchers despise the most: a cliffhanger.

However, the intricacy in each room really awed me; almost every room was designed suitably to a tragic event of each person’s history. Individuals were forced to face and overcome their fears in order to pass the room. Ben (actor Logan Miller) had to take a trip down memory lane to help solve a clue in which the answer was related to a car accident he caused that killed everyone but him.

Yet, after the first two deaths, the movie became too predictable: for every room, someone is expected to die. Although the acting and filming were on point, without a mind-blowing plot, the movie will start to lose its spark and bore the audience. One flaw I’ve noticed is the small number of dynamic characters in the movie. Most of the main characters, such as Jason and Amanda, died; even the side characters were never seen again, not even the ending.

All in all, I think it’s a pretty nice movie to start off the new year. I would recommend this to everyone, both people who aren’t as fond of thrillers and people who would watch marathons. “Escape Room” is a very teen-friendly movie with well-developed settings and special effects!