Review: ‘Escape Room’ is just as bad as the trailer

It was inevitable that “Escape Room” (★★ out of five; rated PG-13; in theaters nationwide Jan. 4) would be a bad movie. The premise (“Find the clues or die”) is too obvious, too easy, for anyone with real ambition to want to run with it. But at least it could have been fun-bad, not just boring-bad.

Welcome to the post-holiday hangover at the American movie theater. Hollywood laid out its Oscar feast before New Year’s, and now it’s time to pick through the leftovers.

Director Adam Robitel (“Insidious: The Last Key”) and writer Bragi Schut (“Season of the Witch”) honor the harmless nerdiness of the escape-the-room fad — seriously, it’s the best corporate team-building field trip ever — by steering clear of “Saw”-style gore in this predictable thriller about six strangers invited to compete for $10,000 at a super-high-end, fully “immersive” puzzle experience, only to find that yes, Hermione, this is going to be exactly like wizard’s chess.

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