Imagine a Saw movie today, but completely stripped of any blood, guts, or gore, any terrible language, a memorable central villain, yet however, more intriguing puzzles and entertainment value to distract the fact that you are not watching a torture porn film. That’s ESCAPE ROOM (this film is PG-13). And no, I’m not talking about the direct to video one that had Skeet Ulrich in it. I’m talking about the one that came out today with True Blood’s Deborah Ann Woll, Tyler Labine, and a bunch of other people you have probably never heard of. When going into the movie, I was expecting a “FUCK YOU, IT’S JANUARY” type of experience. But to my surprise, Escape Room did not deserve to be released this month, because it is actually better than it has any right to be.

I can’t lie and say this movie didn’t entertain me. It really did. So much so in fact that when it was over I was dazed by how fast the 99 minutes flew by. Not to say it’s the greatest January film ever or even one of the best of 2019 already, it was just “in the moment” fun. It’s a little too early to say if it has repetitive view type of merit. Other than the fact that I was shocked I actually liked this movie, I’m shocked this is a January film. When I all capped the phrase in the previous paragraph “FUCK YOU, IT’S JANUARY” (phrase was coined by the clever and hilarious guys over at RedLetterMedia.com), I was referring to how studios usually dump the films they don’t have a lot of confidence in this month. They do this to get the most out of a very slow month (Oscar viewing season is dwindling down) to get your box office bucks, and they think they can make more by doing this maneuver, rather than just selling to Netflix or going straight to video.

This film was too entertaining, and at times clever to be a January film. Maybe late March/early April or a Halloween film. The trailers sort of mis-market the movie as a horror film, with escape rooms actually killing you if you don’t solve the puzzles, but in actuality it is more of a thriller. I do have to give a hand to one part of the marketing, the fun parts of each escape room aren’t ruined in the trailers or TV spots at all. And that’s the best part of the movie, the puzzles in the escape room. I had a lot of fun trying to guess how to solve each room and mentally trying to telepathically send a message to these fictional characters on the big screen where to go and what to do. For a movie called Escape Room, it earns its title. And you cinephiles out there, yes, I know that there is a mid 90s movie called Cube that is a hard R futuristic type version of this film. I have seen it, and I like that one as well.

Also, before I get to the two things that kept this movie from being fantastic, let me give the movie one more shake of the hand. The characters weren’t two dimensional. With such a short 99 minute run time, I thought the cleverness of the escape rooms would be a distraction on how cookie cutter the characters personalities and actions would be. Nope, they manage to give backstories to all of the main escape room characters, and they all manage to work where you actually care about who lives or dies by the end of the movie. And all the acting in the movie was pretty top notch for what is was, in particularly from Deborah Ann Wall, Tyler Labine, and Logan Miller.

Now the two things that stop this film from being great, is the very beginning and the very end of the film. I promise no spoilers, but the beginning of the film does one of those devices that films do that I hate, which is show a later point in the movie, and then the title card pops up that says “# Days Earlier” and goes back to the real start of the film. I literally can’t stand anymore when films do that, because it only shows a character/couple of characters in that moment, so the tension is taken out of knowing that character at least won’t die until that point, and then you probably can then guess that the other characters are taken out earlier in the film. And now the ending, which I won’t spoil here either I promise. The ending felt too rushed. When everything that is going on is revealed I literally said out loud, “wait, that’s it?!” and then another passage in time title card appeared and I really just groaned. For a film with really clever escape room puzzles I was expecting more of a powerful punch of an ending. The ending isn’t horrible by any means. It is just 20 minutes worth of plot crammed into about 5 to 7 minutes. Some of the dialogue was hard to understand and I squinted my eyes and thought, “wait, what is happening?” It also sets up the obligatory sequel shit as well, and hopefully they take it in a actual sequel direction, unlike Saw which just did new characters every time and we cared less and less about them.

Anyway, yes, Escape Room is worth a watch and enjoyable. The theater was pretty packed at my screening and I think it might really do well for January. But this is a film best watched at home, with a group of friends (especially ones that you’ve been with to an actual real escape room), with all of you screaming out and talking about the rooms and how you would try and solve the puzzles. While this film is fun, will it end up being forgettable? That’s a riddle to be solved later.

Alright, I’ll play along with these annoyingly irritating dumb numerous memes floating around the internet paying homage to a movie released a week ago, BIRD BOX. You go to the drive thru at Popeyes, and order the 5 piece spicy chicken tenders box with a biscuit and red beans and rice as your side, and you order a nice Coca Cola, light ice, to wash it down. You get home and open your box and there are only three God damn tenders in there, none of them spicy, the biscuit is missing, instead of red beans and rice they give you their disgusting mac and cheese, and your coke is a bitter Root Beer, ice to the brim. BIRD BOX is that second “bird box” I described.

In this review I’m not going to go down the route of, “Bird Box is basically just A Quiet Place and The Happening if they fucked and had a little baby bird.” That is the least of the movies problems. And with all these technicalities, like the first draft (not publishing date) of the novel Bird Box was before The Happening and this and A Quiet Place being filmed around the same time, making those arguments is going to get you no where. I’ll just say that the movie in no way gets to the ridiculousness of The Happening, but it in no way gets even close to the heights of A Quiet Place. It is just in a mediocre middle.

The movie starts out promising. The mass hysteria where everything starts and people start killing themselves in front of Sandra Bullock was really well done and shot. It made what happens all throughout The Happening feel like it was written and directed by a monkey with a blind fold on. But then…we get into the one location problem. And yes, I get that it switches back and forth between past and present day. But the past stays in one location (the house) and the present basically stay in one location (the river) for the majority of the film. I would’ve loved if the movie had like a horror type adventure feel with just Sandra Bullock and the two kids surviving out in the open world wild. But instead we get the “survivors get holed up in one location cliched plot with them getting killed off one by one.”

I probably don’t need to explain the plot to you because you’ve probably already seen this film and are just wondering what I think because I’m very critical of movies. But in case you haven’t been on social media this whole week, the movie is about these creatures (which go unseen the entire film, one of the few things the movie does correctly) that if you look at them, you kill yourself. Sandra Bullock is a pregnant woman whose man left her and as she leaves the hospital, what started out in Russia and Europe starts happening in the states. She gets holed up in a house full of other survivors, just trying to survive. However, in one of the very first things the movie gets wrong is that what I just described to you has already happened in the movie, and the film actually starts with Bullock and two kids (one of the presumably hers) in the present, escaping into a row boat and going down river. Revealing that bullshit, instead of just going chronologically like the movie should have done, took out about 90% of the tension that the past had going for it, because we know that probably the other survivors introduced to us either leave or kill themselves.

And the holed up in one location plot line would’ve been forgivable if the movie didn’t do the one major thing wrong that completely fucked up the entire film and doesn’t make me want to read the novel: the evil human element. Why do we have to have evil humans in every single creature feature that is brought to the public? (A Quiet Place doesn’t do this, which is why it is in my top ten list of films in 2018) Why can’t it just be the creatures? I’ll tell you why. It is because when you have survivors holed up in one location with all the windows blocked out and for some reason the creatures can’t just break into places (seriously, they have the power to make you kill yourself but can’t just attack things and get inside a fucking house?), you write yourself right into a fucking hole. And the only way to dig yourself out, is to get something into the house that will force the other survivors to look at the creatures, and that means writing in humans that can look at the creatures and not kill themselves, but instead become evil humans seduced by the creatures power. It’s a stupid way to write yourself out of the whole, especially when I myself have thought of a dozen ways to move the plot forward without writing in a evil human antagonist element.

And I’m sorry but Sandra Bullock is completely flat in this. Either she thought that was what the character should be or someone told her while shooting that this was going straight to Netflix. It just seemed like she was annoyed to be there. Maybe that’s just me. In fact the only decent acting came from Danielle Campbell, who I can’t believe is in this considering I just watched Dumplin’ yesterday. She’s pretty good in this, even though her screentime is limited. It seems like they were maybe filming this across the street and asked her to play this bit part. But she pulled it off. And Sarah Paulson’s five minute “I’m just in this briefly for shock value” part in this was an insult.

There are also a lot of laughable parts in this. The CGI birds at the very end of the film. The fact that two characters that are both pregnant go into labor at the exact same time. The evil human element. I was laughing when I should’ve been feeling tension throughout the whole thing. It’s not exactly a terrible movie. It’s just meh. There were much much worse films I’ve seen this year dealing with creatures **coughFallenKingdomcough** It is what I’d like to call “Netflix passable.” Kind of like Cloverfield Paradox was “Netflix passable.” Definitely not as shitty as any Adam Sandler Netflix original, but definitely not as good as something like Roma or Dumplin’. Bird Box definitely made me feel like I had the “Frozen effect,” people hooting and hollering about a film that I watch after the hype and I feel that the whole thing was just meh. With a smarter script, better acting, better direction, better everything, this could’ve been a cool theatrical experience. But in some ways, I wish I was wearing a blind fold myself for about an hour out of this two hour film.

Barry Jenkins is killing it. In a good way. Anyone that is anyone knows this. Moonlight shocked people several years ago when it surprisingly still won Best Picture over La La Land and Jenkins won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay, on his first theatrical feature. So now we have his follow up, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK, and while don’t get me wrong, I still found it very good, I didn’t find it in the same ballpark of greatness that I found Moonlight, and that was only due to what I felt was one major misstep that I’ll get to later.

If Beale Street Could Talk is about a young African American woman that lives in Harlem that reveals to her family that she is pregnant with the baby of her lifelong friend turned fiance, who happens to be in jail of a rape crime that he did not commit. Her and her family try to prove his innocence and get him out of jail before she has the baby. It’s a very well told story. The movie goes back and forth in time, and focuses on the blooming love between the two rather than just showing the inciting incident and its aftermath. We get to know the characters very well and most of the emotions are earned.

I loved the fact that they didn’t show the actual rape being committed to a poor Puerto Rican woman, and I loved the fact they didn’t show the event of him being arrested for it, the woman picking him out of a line up, etc, etc. Any other movie would do that. Not showing the audience that cliched storytelling device, and just lightly telling us a summary of what happened, while still showing and focusing on the love between the two protagonists, is the smartest thing writer/director Barry Jenkins did with this. It makes me want to go and read the book and see what that was done differently. I know in my reviews that I have a tendency to complain when movie just tell us instead of show us. But this is an exception. The movie shows us the love blossoming between the two lovers which in a way shows us their plight without actually having to show us in graphic detail how that plight started.

The one thing that keeps this movie from entering my top 20 films of the year list and me proclaiming it was a masterpiece and that it is as good or better than Moonlight, is the acting. Except for the incredible Regina King, which for all intents and purposes I’d say just hand her the Supporting Actress Oscar right now, the acting is a little too over the top and melodramatic. Well, sort of. Let me explain. I think the main protagonist woman, Tish, played by KiKi Layne, was miscast. She plays the very young innocent woman thing wayyyy too over the top and melodramatic that I felt in the end her character was one dimensional. The most melodramatic scene in the movie, which should’ve been the most realistic and powerful, is when she tells her family and her fiances family that she is pregnant. And the mother of the jailed son is so over the top Bible preaching type woman that it took me out of the movie the entire scene and I struggled for a few minutes getting back into it. The only reason I got back into the movie was Regina King. She is THAT good in this.

At first I thought the jailed son, Fonny, played by Stephan James, was overdramatic and one dimensional, but his character has the most growth and an actual arc, especially after this incredible long conversation about the evils of white people with his friend, played by Brian Tyree Henry, who confesses that he had been in jail the past two years and can’t speak of what happened to him in there (sorry, forgot to mention the movie goes back and forth in time, and it does that perfectly well and it isn’t scatterbrained at all).

And I thought the ending was quite perfect too, considering the movie is set in the late 60s/early 70s. The movies underlying message evolves throughout the whole runtime, with the ending packing one hell of an emotional punch. If you see this and don’t like the ending, consider the time it is at. Actually, I think the ending could work in our times today (which was probably the damn point, duh).

Anyway, I still really do like this film. I really do. I love Regina King in it, I can’t sing her praises enough. And the convo between Stephen James and Brian Tyree Henry I won’t be able to get out of my head. But most of the other acting was too over the top, melodramatic, and not realistic enough for me to take seriously. It felt like I was watching a play (which if it were the acting would’ve been fantastic) and not a theatrical feature. Maybe the book presents it like a play and after I read it I could re examine the whole film? Maybe. But I’m reviewing this with my own personal taste and it is just how I felt. Maybe you’ll feel different and think I’m insane for not putting it in my top ten. But hear me out, it is a really good movie, just a few things, just on my end, that kept it from me considering it a masterpiece. I’m still highly recommending it.

Two reason why I started watching DUMPLIN’. 1. I couldn’t watch Bird Box because my wife was in the room and doesn’t like scary movies. 2. An original song by Dolly Parton in the film is nominated for best original song at the Golden Globe, and it was the only movie in that category I hadn’t seen, so I thought I’d cross it off the list. Turns out, I am glad that I did. It’s a sort of cute, sort of sweet little film, with a lot of heart. And the only true complaint I have of the film is that Jennifer Aniston absolutely cannot pull off a country accent to save her life.

I didn’t know much about this film going in either. I think I’ve seen bits of a trailer online with no sound. I know that Danielle Campbell was in it (to be honest until I just memorized her name a day ago I was calling her the big girl from that rap movie ((Patti Cakes)) and that Jennifer Aniston played her mom who was once a big deal beauty queen that won a bunch of pageants, and now she sponsors/owns one. That’s it. When the time came into the film that Campbell’s character Willa Dean enters her mothers pageant to honor her late aunt and to show her mom she isn’t just some lacky, I was going, “oh, so it’s going to be one of those cliched pageant movies huh?” I was waiting for all the cliched lines and jokes I’ve seen in films like Miss Congeniality 1 & 2 and Drop Dead Gorgeous, or just a bunch of people making fun of her because she was a bigger person entering a sexy thin girl pageant. But low and behold, that wasn’t what it was.

There really is only a couple of name calling things, but its at the beginning of the film and is in high school and isn’t at the pageant. In fact, if I remember correctly all the girls in the pageant ended up being nice to her and didn’t play any dirty high school fat girl jokes on her during the course of the film. The film strategically puts the daughter and mother relationship at the forefront of the film, her relationship she had with her late aunt second, her friendship with her hot skinny friend that they’ve had since they were little third, and her friendship with some new weird people, skinny and fat fourth. All the this being a big person in a pageant scenario is quietly pushed backstage and never to be seen again from the beginning of the film. Also, the movie is smart enough not to have her friend go mean, all high and mighty either, they have like a really stupid fight and make up shortly after.

The movie is cute and slightly funny. I don’t think I laughed out loud all that much, but I did indeed chuckle, and the movie kept my attention that I didn’t just go to my laptop to pass any boring parts. Danielle Campbell, after seeing her in Patti Cakes, and now this, is an incredible actress that deserves more theatrical chances. Her being a white trash wrapper to a country gal in this is a complete 180 change, and she pulls it off in flying colors. Like I said, the only problem I had with this film was Jennifer Aniston. Her country accent is terrible and has the whole cliched “I do love my child but I ignore her mostly and don’t think she should be in my pageant because of her size but obviously will change her tune by the end of the movie.” It probably doesn’t help that I’ve been marathoning Friends recently in the background while trying to get my son asleep. I just don’t see her as anything than Rachel.

I was surprised to see Bex Taylor Klaus in the film (I’ve met her in real life and have a picture with her and Carlson Young from the Scream TV series), but I was hoping for more of her character. She is just a rebel that enters the pageant just because she can and doesn’t care about the whole thing. She doesn’t have an arc. Another big girl enters as well and I love where her story goes, and Harold Perinneau plays an excellent drag queen that helps the girls a little on their way. It’s a cute film with excellent entertainment value. Definitely one of the better things that Netflix has put out. Now off I go, going to watch Bird Box tonight to see what all the fuss is about, even though I have a good feeling that Dumplin’ will end up being the better watch of the two and more worth your time.