Taylor Russell

  • Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, November 2022) Looking at my notes, I was sort-of-pleasantly surprised by the first Escape Room film: It had its moments, some slick production values and, by structuring itself episodically in very different environments, was able to score a few highs and sweep away its lows. The overall framing device wasn’t anything new (dark web online betting again? Oh boy!) but the chance to see Taylor Russell once again dealing with devilishly overengineered traps was once again too sweet to miss. Alas, sequel Escape Room: Tournament of Champions seems to prove the theory of diminishing returns—While it has a few engaging moments (the best being the first two escape rooms) and a dynamic, colourful style that brings to mind a slicker, not-so-grungy Saw series, it’s unable to surprise, not always clever, and finds itself locked in a conceptual trap of its own. By pivoting into what’s being built as an ongoing series, this second Escape Room announces itself as being limited by design: there will never be an escape for the characters (except through death), the conspiracy will never be defeated and the only thing left to focus on are the set-pieces. Russell remains a compelling presence throughout, especially since few of the supporting players show signs of life—but the point here are the escape rooms rather than characters or compelling plot. Here too, the going is uneven: The first and second set-pieces (the subway car and the bank) are engaging because the film takes the time to establish sane rules and escalate them, with an appropriate amount of friction and loud music to raise the tension. The other sequences get more convoluted, more hurried and borderline nonsensical (the acid rain thing is too stupid for words), making the film progressively less interesting. And let’s not talk about the overarching story, because Tournament of Champions only scores surprises, not twists: The entry of the participants into the new escape rooms makes no sense yet is incredibly predictable (to the point of being exasperated at the film taking this long to come clean)—the same goes for the not-surprising-at-all “twist” at the end of the film. The revival of a character thought dead at the end of the first film counts as a surprise because it’s from left field, but then they go on to fumble what they could have done with it. So, yeah—Tournament of Champions’ few good moments don’t make up for the worse ones nor the brain-dead predictability of a series that now seems headed for the franchise factory. We may get a few interesting over-engineered escape-room sequences in the next few instalments, but don’t expect it to be good ever again.

  • Hot Air (2018)

    Hot Air (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2020) Considering the United States currently charged political climate, fomented by shameless media outlets for which truth takes a backseat to profits, it’s almost inevitable that we would get Hot Air, a dramatic comedy featuring a blowhard conservative radio personality challenged by the unexpected arrival of a hitherto estranged but very progressive teenage niece. The two best things going for the film are its lead acting duo—Taylor Russell is very likable as the niece, but it’s Steve Coogan who gets most of the attention at the radio host: he looks the part, but clearly wants to puncture the façade presented here. Much of Hot Air does poke at the “man who learns better” trope, while not going too emotional about it. The highlight of the film is a long screed from host to public that nods toward Network and does have its moments (among them “You elect a deranged conman just to see what happens!”) but does strip hollow the contradiction between the film’s premise and its execution. To put it simply, Hot Air wants to play with political divisions, but stops short of being political about it: it’s all platitudes and homilies disarming any attempt at taking a true position on its premise. It misdirects and brings the focus to personal epiphanies, while ignoring the uglier political climate in which it’s supposed to take place. The show goes on and still the film tries to make us believe in a context that no longer exists in American culture: Anyone outside US borders will recognize that the political conversation going on since 2016 isn’t between feel-good mushy notions of liberalism versus conservatism, but reason against full-blown authoritarian craziness. Your average American right-wing radio host appealing to a crazed base has nothing to do with the one played by Coogan here, and so Hot Air seems to be trivializing its topic to the point of having nothing to say—which would be completely acceptable for many kinds of films, but not one that explicitly courts audiences with a political premise. I may be part of the problem in ringing a five-bell alarm over what’s happening right now and wishing for more substantial denunciations of a toxic right-wing, but the current situation is not tenable, and I can point to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths to prove my point. Oh, I still liked Hot Air—Cooghan and Russell and Neve Campbell are giving it what they’ve got, and the film does everything that it wants to do in its carefully delimited audience-friendly way. But right now, in the gaslit interregnum between Presidents 45 and 46, I’m more irritated at anyone still claiming to be on the fence.

  • Escape Room (2019)

    Escape Room (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) At first glance, Escape Room looks like one of those instantly disposable horror movies that have been part of the cinema landscape for a few decades—based on a fad, shot with a small budget in enclosed locations with a handful of actors, and ready to populate the multiplexes until the next such movie a few weeks later. A viewing will confirm this suspicion, albeit with an important caveat—Escape Room is fun to watch more often than not, and works reasonably well until its somewhat disappointing ending. You can certainly see similarities between Escape Room and such other notable titles as Saw and Cube—strangers trapped in an enclosed location, trying to decode the twisted logic that will free them. This being a horror movie, the titular escape rooms are fatal and specifically aimed at their victims—we know how close we are to the ending by the number of participants that remain. Some slick cinematography, capable direction from Adam Robitel, decent actors, restrained gore and a script that manages to succeed during its first two acts all help make Escape Room a serviceable horror movie—and if that sounds like faint praise, then you haven’t seen the depths to which many contemporary horror movies sink to. Escape Room isn’t without its problems, but it’s distinctive enough to be interesting, well-handled-enough to keep our interest, and features likable performers. Taylor Russell is quite likable as the obviously designated final girl, while Jay Ellis delivers a solid performance as an untrustworthy participant. Tyler Labine has a small but striking role, while Deborah Ann Woll makes the most of a sketched-in character. The script has its ups and down: on the positive side, it imagines some ingenious and terrifying escape rooms, and does manage to suggest quite a bit of background to the characters without underlining every single element of it. Less fortunately, it doesn’t quite manage a satisfactory ending: The “fatal game that rich people bet on” shtick is getting old (Unfriended: Dark Web didn’t get there first, but it’s only one of many other recent horror movies using the same plot point), and the way it’s handled smacks more of premature franchise announcement than a way to wrap up this film effectively. Still, I enjoyed Escape Room quite a bit more than I thought even with its various issues—Since a sequel seems inevitable, then let’s welcome it and see what it will have to offer.