"Escape Room" and "Isn't It Romantic"

At the time of writing, at the end of May, the three highest grossing films of 2019 at the domestic box office, that are not based on any pre-existing media, are the horror movies "Us" and "Escape Room" and the romantic-comedy spoof "Isn't it Romantic."  And I figured that the latter two deserved some recognition for that. Jordan Peele's "Us, " of course, has gotten plenty of attention and I'll write it a separate post for it later.

Now, both "Escape Room" and "Isn't it Romantic?" are deeply derivative.  "Escape Room" follows the pattern of "Saw," with a group of characters working their way through a series of deathtraps to escape a fiendish mastermind.  However, it's much tamer than "Saw," with a PG-13 rating, and more emphasis on puzzles and mind games rather than grisly kills and jump scares. The characters are stock types, but decently fleshed out.  There's the shy brainy girl, Zoe (Taylor Russell), high powered executive, Jason (Jay Ellis), directionless grocery store stocker, Ben (Logan Miller), scarred war vet, Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), jovial middle aged white guy, Mike (Taylor Labine), and an escape room enthusiast nerd, Danny (Nik Dodani).  All are lured to participate in the escape room under false pretenses.

What I like about "Escape Room" is that it really embraces its gimmick.  I had a brief fascination with real escape rooms around the time I was trying out online puzzle box games last year.  I know enough about them that the film's depicted gameplay felt mostly right. There's a certain pattern to how the puzzles and cyphers work that is translated pretty well to the screen.  Of course, this being a movie, the escape rooms are far more elaborate than anything seen in real life, to the point where most are wildly improbable. Also, there's a little too much hand-holding and way too many convenient coincidences to fill in backstory and set up the big reveals.  There's no reason for the escape rooms to be personalized, for instance, except that it gives the characters an excuse to talk about themselves.

Still, for what it is, the movie mostly works.  There are some good thrills and some cerebral satisfaction in seeing how the puzzles are solved or defeated.  The different rooms are well constructed and each one has some wow factor to them. The characters are thin, but still likeable enough that it's sad to see some of them get killed off.  A lot of the execution is very sloppy, especially the ending, but the premise is sound. I expect that it will be able to sustain the several sequels that are no doubt on their way, along with all kinds of convoluted melodrama about the sinister nogoodniks behind the game.  And I don't think that's such a bad thing, since I'd happily watch another installment or two with smarter writing.

On to "Isn't it Romantic," where Rebel Wilson's Natalie is a single New Yorker who hates romantic-comedies and all their unrealistic tropes.  So, naturally, she suffers a head injury and wakes up in a picture perfect rom-com universe where she's the improbable star. The movie takes aim at common tropes like the gay best friend, embodied by Natalie's neighbor Donny (Brandon Scott Jones), the evil co-worker/rival, Whitney (Betty Gilpin), the lifestyle upgrades, and the random musical numbers, before inevitably getting down to the business of actually being a romantic-comedy and having Natalie choose between the hunky Blake (Liam Hemsworth), and her sweet bestie Josh (Adam DeVine), who is about to get married to a stunning yoga ambassador, Isabella (Priyanka Chopra).   

The trailer for "Isn't it Romantic" is better than the film itself, because the gimmick of Rebel Wilson being exasperated with being stuck in an airbrushed PG-13 universe wears out its welcome, and the movie isn't nearly as thorough with its skewering of the rom-com genre as I wanted it to be.  Still, the movie does a very good job of selling the joke. A lot of time is spent establishing Natalie's baseline reality in a recognizably grungy New York, before she's whisked away to the fantasy version of it. And Rebel Wilson is a great fit for the material, because you understand immediately why she has such a grudge against this kind of fantasy.  The ensemble is also very strong, with Hemsworth and Chopra being very good sports playing superficial caricatures, and DeVine keeping Josh down to earth.

The humor is clever, but it's just not as clever as I wanted it to be.  There are some strong individual gags like Natalie never being able to properly consummate her relationship because the movie keeps cutting away to the next day, and the art direction is full of funny visual touches.  However, the plot pivots too quickly to following the beats of a typical rom-com once Natalie decides to play along. "Isn't it Romantic" only bothers mocking most of its targets on a surface level, because it relies heavily on plenty of rom-com tropes itself to get to a happy ending.  To be fair, this is what most genre satires like "Shaun of the Dead" do - they follow the usual formula while pointing out the sillier parts of it. "Isn't it Romantic" just doesn't offer as much insight or subversion as some of the better ones. It's still fun, and plenty romantic, but I wouldn't go on a second date.         

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