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Escape Room Takes Viewers Into Familiar Territory

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With a new year comes the January dump that movie fans have become accustomed to. It’s the time of year when studios offer up minimal effort features as an escape from the awards season discussion. It’s all a low-stakes affair with minuscule expectations. Thankfully this can often lead to fun unassuming surprises like Escape Room.

The film centers around six strangers – Zoey (Taylor Russell), Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), Mike (Tyler Labine), Ben (Logan Miller), Danny (Nik Dodani), and Jason (Jay Ellis) who come together after receiving an invitation to a new escape room experience with a grand prize of $10,000. They soon find out the stakes are much higher than winning or losing and must work together if they hope to escape with their lives.

Plot-wise the film plays out like the Baby Einstein version of Saw. Rather than dump the audience straight into the mystery the film reveals the penultimate level and its participants, diluting the intrigue that is meant to carry you through the next 90 minutes. This is followed by character introductions that telegraph the haves and have-nots while the film sprinkles in a few groan-worthy platitudes just in case you missed the glowing neon signs that read “THIS IS THEIR CHARACTER FLAW”.

With that out of the way the games commence, and if Saw were a Rubik’s Cube, a game designed to test one’s will and mental aptitude, then Escape Room is a collection of those moments in Dora the Explorer where you have to point at the bridge just behind her except sometimes the bridge is out of frame, a simple task disguised as more thanks to unfair manipulation. In practice, each room’s set of objectives fluctuate between glaringly obvious and unsolvable unless the characters point it out. This doesn’t make the game any less fun in the moment, but rather unsatisfying once the full puzzle is revealed.

This all combines to create a sense of familiarity. We’ve met these characters before, and we’ve played this game numerous times. Within the first quarter of the film, you could take a guess at the film’s outcome and get at least 80% of the way there. The other 20% being reveals that lead to a “sure, if you say so” shrug.

Yet, despite all that Escape Room has working against it, I walked away feeling refreshed. After downing a handful of heavier features in the past few months, Escape Room is a comfortable palette cleanser. There is a level of satisfaction in watching someone struggle with a puzzle you solved five minutes prior, or to watch people squabble as they find themselves in a giant oven. It’s silly and inoffensive, sometimes ridiculous, but it always manages to be entertaining on one level or another. Whether you’re laughing with it or at it, at least you’re laughing.

Nobody will remember Escape Room when February and March roll around, but by then it’ll have already served its purpose. We’ll soon be on to prettier, deeper films that warrant our interest and challenge our perspectives, but until then it’s good for a one-night stand.

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Paramount+ Reveals Official Main Title Sequence for the Upcoming Series TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

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During the TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES panel earlier today at San Diego Comic Con, Paramount+ revealed the official main title sequence for the series. The sequence is composed by EMMY® nominee, Matt Mahaffey, known for his work on Sanjay and Craig, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie and much more. 

From the studios of the Mutant Mayhem film, the all-new Paramount+ original series TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES explores the adventures of everyone’s favorite pizza-loving heroes as they emerge from the sewers onto the streets of NYC. Leo, Raph, Donnie and Mikey are faced with new threats and team up with old allies to survive both teenage life and villains lurking in the shadows of the Big Apple. The series is produced by Nickelodeon Animation and Point Grey Pictures.

TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES is executive produced by Chris Yost (The Mandalorian, Thor: Ragnarok) and Alan Wan (Blue Eye Samurai, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [2012 Series]). Production is overseen for Nickelodeon by Claudia Spinelli, Senior Vice President, TV Series Animation, Nickelodeon, and Nikki Price, Director of Development and Executive in Charge of Production.

In addition to the upcoming new series, stream all things Turtles on Paramount+.

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Comic-Con 2024: Those About to Die Activation

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DISNEY+ CASTS DANIEL DIEMER AS FAN-FAVORITE ‘TYSON’IN SEASON TWO OF “PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS”

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 in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, Rick Riordan and Disney+ revealed that Daniel Diemer (“Under the Bridge”) will star as fan-favorite cyclops “Tyson” in the epic adventure series “Percy Jackson and the Olympians.” Diemer joins Walker Scobell (Percy Jackson), Leah Sava Jeffries (Annabeth Chase) and Aryan Simhadri (Grover Underwood) as a series regular. The Disney+ Original series from Disney Branded Television and 20th Television will start filming its second season next week in Vancouver.

Season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is based on the second installment of Disney Hyperion’s best-selling book series titled “The Sea of Monsters” by award-winning author Rick Riordan. In the new season, Percy Jackson returns to Camp Half-Blood one year later to find his world turned upside down. His friendship with Annabeth is changing, he learns he has a cyclops for a brother, Grover has gone missing, and camp is under siege from the forces of Kronos. Percy’s journey to set things right will take him off the map and into the deadly Sea of Monsters, where a secret fate awaits the son of Poseidon.

Diemer stars as Tyson – a young Cyclops who grew up all alone on the streets, and finds it difficult to survive in the human world.  Shy and awkward, with a heart almost as big as he is, Tyson soon discovers that Poseidon is his father, which means Percy Jackson is his half-brother… and that Tyson may have finally found a home. 

Diemer recently starred in the Hulu limited series “Under the Bridge” based off the critically acclaimed book of the same name and a tragic true story of a missing teen girl in Vancouver in 1997. He will next star in the indie “Thug” opposite Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman for director Hans Petter Moland. Daniel was recently seen as the lead in the indie “Supercell” opposite Alec Baldwin and Skeet Ulrich and the lead in the film “Little Brother” opposite Phil Ettinger and JK Simmons. Daniel can also be seen in the Netflix series “The Midnight Club” and recently starred as the male lead in the breakout hit Netflix feature “The Half Of It” from producer Anthony Bregman and director Alice Wu. He is a graduate of Victoria Academy of Dramatic Arts in Vancouver.

Created by Rick Riordan and Jonathan E. Steinberg, season two of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is executive produced by Steinberg and Dan Shotz alongside Rick Riordan, Rebecca Riordan, Craig Silverstein, The Gotham Group’s Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Bert Salke, The Gotham Group’s Jeremy Bell and D.J. Goldberg, James Bobin, Jim Rowe, Albert Kim, Jason Ensler and Sarah Watson.

The first season of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is available on Disney+

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