Escape Room Reviews: The Crime Scene

Company: Enigma Escape
Room: The Crime Scene
Date Played: 5/14/17
Player Count: 2, which was enough
Success:  Success!  We not only escaped, we solved the murder!

Premise: My Uncle, the one who died a little while ago and we attended the reading of his Will? It’s time to discover what exactly happened to him, in this probably-flashback mystery.

Immersion: Enigma Escape has a particular level of quality and design that isn’t precisely matched by many other companies out there. Things feel solid, and old, not made of pressboard. What it may lack in the sense that an object or puzzle might not 'really be there,' Enigma makes up for in craftsmanship in their build-outs. 

Highlights: Some of the reveals are pretty fun in this room. Our typical opening sweep of the environment paid off. I'd love to be able to see heat maps, or some kind of time graph, of various escape rooms to see how much time the average group spends on various points of the puzzle flow. We did get stuck at one point, but according to our GM, not where people usually do, and we supposedly breezed right through some interactions that are usually sticking points. (This could be a specialized case of the rule where the GM has to tell you how smart and wonderful you are, but without a chart, I can't tell!)

Lowlights: We smashed against our most frequent, most dreaded hint: "keep going!" One box was open to us as soon as we saw it, and I was never clear on whether or not it was a mistake.

And Finally:   In our visit to The Will, we got the sense that this company's rooms would be playable as a duo, and we were right. Enigma's rooms are typically a mix of locks and interesting (sometimes mechanical) tech, and I think this is the first time I've played a room that made a bonus goal of actually comprehending the story. Out of 24 rooms played, I'm ranking this one #12. Because trying to rank all of the rooms numerically is a little bit absurd, I'm pretty sure that this reflects that this room is among the finest of what escape rooms were capable of a year or two or three ago.

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.enigmaescaperooms.com/room/info/4

#2,362: Avalanche! (And the start of MST3K s11)

MST 1101: Reptilicus
MST 1102: Cry Wilderness
MST 1103: The Time Travelers
MST 1104: Avalanche

I was worried that I was going to be completely weirded out by the new season of MST3K. I've met most of the previous casts of the show, but I knew Jonah and the new bots long before they got this gig. I was worried it was just going to seem like some dudes I know doing a podcast. And while it is a little weird to me to hear these guys making callbacks to jokes made by their predecessors 20 years ago, I think I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality. 

I've also been very surprised to see this incarnation turn everything I know about MST on its head. I used to watch this show for the host segments above all else. And while I appreciate the effort to check the boxes of the original series, so far they're mostly... not good. I can't believe that I like the theater part more, and I can't believe that Crow / Hampton is my favorite. I'm so glad he's doing a character voice. Baron is a terrific comic, but has enormous shoes– or, an enormous hoverskirt to fill. 

Technical production on the show, from what I've heard about it, seems just plain weird. I think part of what made the original, or the early era of Adult Swim so great, was that it was made by creative people with a lot more time than money. While this season is probably constrained by budget as much as anything, it still seems like the mass-produced version of the show. The timing feels weird, and it's because they're not actually in the room together recording the riffs. The characters don't necessarily match what they're saying because they're shot separately. The host segments don't have time for another take. The whole thing feels way more digital. 

In high school, it was my dream job to work on MST3K, and between how many other odd opportunities I've had to work with my heroes of that era, and how many people I knew that were involved in this version, I'm almost surprised I didn't have any involvement aside from donating $1. But at the same time, I'm not sure if this is the version I would have wanted to be a part of.  (Oh, I talk a good game, but I'm sure I'd've jumped at the gig!)

As for the episodes themselves: some of the movies aren't that bad. I'm intrigued by the weird little hints of continuity between them and hope that pays off somehow. The guest stars have been really disappointing. The set is weird in a new aspect ratio (and yet no hexfield!). And I hate TV's Son of TV's Frank. Sure, the name is dumb, but something about casting 'names' into MST3K, no matter how much they may have loved the old show, makes the new one feel like fanfic. 

#2,358: Free Fire

The Circle - ★½☆☆☆
The most millennial thing about this movie is how actions are decoupled from consequences. The main character's actions don't seem to mean anything, good or bad. She's just intuitively correct about everything at the beginning of the movie, and has no need to change or grow. Like any time you start to think 'oh no, I wonder how she'll get out of this one!' the answer turns out to be 'everything's okay, and it always has been!'

The supporting cast makes even less sense. Their behavior from scene to scene is baffling.

Some people would probably say that it's anticlimactic when all of a character's plans work on the first try, but those people will probably suffer a nonsensical death that won't be mourned for more than a scene or two.

I was happy for some people I know that got to be in the movie.

Ant-Man - ★★★☆☆
I think I liked this more with the benefit of time, and Civil War. Despite the cosmic and magical entries, this is still the most nonsensical MCU entry.

Going in Style - ★★★☆☆
Safe, smooth, and destined for a long life on TBS.

Free Fire - ★★★★☆
It seems like a shame that nobody was there to see this on the opening weekend. I think it's got one of those trailers that makes you feel like you've already seen it all. It's fun, it's funny, it's got a good mix of banter and slapstick. I would have liked it to either be a little bit shorter or to have had one more complication enter the fray towards the end, but I liked it. It feels like cinema.

#2,354: Power Rangers

Guardians of the Galaxy - ★★☆☆☆
I still don't think this is very good, but I'm not as mad about it. I do feel comfortable keeping Guardians in its spot as the worst MCU movie though.

Magicians: Life in the Impossible - ★★★½☆
This documentary makes the argument that magicians are even sadder than open mic comics.

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World - ★★½☆☆
This is almost an anthology film of short documentaries about the internet. Some folks seem to be saying that since Herzog is not from the internet, he shouldn't be making them, but this is nonsense. He's an outsider to many of the niches his documentaries visit, and we like that about him and them. Still, I would have cut maybe two chapters.

Power Rangers - ★★★☆☆
Krispy Kreme's Power Rangers is... kind of okay! It's got a lot of good ideas for a power rangers reboot, but it doesn't quite get them all on the screen. I wonder if there was a rewrite done to specifically address the fact that the suits are impractical and boring. It makes the movie feel like a cinematic stress dream.

It would have been fun if they were able to use their powers, so that we could watch the rangers learn to handle them. Maybe they could have left the Batcave at some point and fought some bad guys– puttys attacking the playground (I mean, town) is kind of a staple. Instead, everyone knows how to use all of the alien technology automatically. Maybe it's all really well designed. Maybe one of the ancient rangers was their civilization's Jony Ive.

And it's got the theme song! I was expecting a modernized version under the credits that never turned up, but at least this movie succeeded where X-Men: First Class let us down.

I am curious though– what are the power rangers supposed to do now? I mean, presumably Zedd or someone shows up in the sequel, but what do they do until then? Are they fighting street crime? ISIS? Attending book fairs? They seem pretty popular with the public despite the fact that it's probably against their code to ever appear in public again.

#2,349: Get Out

Before I Fall - ★☆☆☆☆
This year's [sci-fi premise + high school] entry.

It's said that in Harold Ramis' vision of Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character spends perhaps hundreds or thousands of years working his way to enlightenment by reliving that same day. So here's our pitch: let's take a group of teens that are meant to be pretty unlikeable at the outset, you know, so we can show what a journey they've taken? And we'll give just one of them the chance to set things right by letting her relive her day, oh, how about half a dozen times? I'm sure that'll do it.

It's goofy beyond belief, but just beginning to count the ways in print feels a little bit mean.

Sleight - ★★★☆☆
Mostly neat. A little bit fast and loose with its own rules. I'm always interested in 'magic' movies to see where they do practical tricks vs. visual effects.

(Okay, again, I want to avoid the list of nerdy nitpicks, but for real, just about everyone casually touches him on the arm at just the right spot and nobody notices anything? Even he doesn't flinch at it? Seems like a weird choice.)

The Belko Experiment - ★★½☆☆
Another B-Movie. B for Blumhouse. Everything they make is like, passable, but you wish they'd gone just a little bit further. Their whole company lives and dies by the 80/20 rule. (Which is going great for them, of course, but I'm always a little let down.)

As to the movie itself, it seems like a waste to enter this little niche of a subgenre if you don't have anything new to contribute or say or do or add. I didn't realize that James Gunn wrote it until I looked it up on Letterboxd, but that makes sense to me.

Get Out - ★★★½☆
This movie doesn't make me think that Jordan Peele "reinvented" horror or whatever, but It does make me think that he grew up watching movies made in that time when horror and sci-fi movies were about something. Get Out, like an early Romero Dead movie, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, is a movie about something, and we do need more of those. It's a pretty straightforward horror flick– could've been made 30 years ago, except for if it couldn't've been made 30 years ago.