Escape Room Reviews: The Will

Company: Enigma Escape Rooms
Room: The Will
Date Played: 8/6/16
Player Count: 4, which was plenty.

Success:  Success! Some hints.

Premise: Your dear uncle has shuffled off this mortal coil. You must find his will in his study before you’re shuffled off as well, by his lethal traps!

Immersion: As an office, it looked a lot like an office.  New best introduction by a host: She went over the rules, and then remembered that she had a letter addressed to us which set the scene.

Highlights: Instead of being all locks, this room had a lot of ‘magic objects,’ or devices that know when they’ve been used correctly and advance the game. One puzzle would have left me feeling and looking silly except that it turned out I was doing the right thing, which was fairly satisfying.

Lowlights: We were warned so thoroughly at the beginning about what was and wasn’t okay to touch that we missed out on something important at the beginning until the GM intervened on the radio. I think I’m starting to come down on the use of walkie-talkies - it seems like in the rooms where we have them, the GMs are too eager to use them.  I couldn’t tell if one of the puzzles was actually tech driven or if it was just activated by the GM watching and talking to us. 

And Finally: As we progress, my regular group of four is finding that we have certain roles we fall into.  One guy focuses on the dexterity puzzles (something this room didn’t feature heavily), one of us is the communications officer, handling real radios and fake phones alike. My specialty might be stepping back to see a bigger picture and then saying ‘Oh, I see it.’ and doing the unlikely or silly seeming thing. In this room, that paid off in a big way, but earlier on it also led us astray and wasted a lot of time while I ignored a big obvious thing. 

Also, I think I noticed that this room has been revised, with a certain puzzle toned down, even though the clues to the original version (I suspect) are still ‘in play,’ even though they serve no actual purpose.   

Unlike some of our previous rooms, I think any two of us would have been sufficient to solve The Will.  There is another room that continues the story, in which you solve your uncle's murder. I'm looking forward to playing it one day. Out of the 5 rooms we've played, I'm ranking this one #3. 

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://www.enigmaescaperooms.com/room/info/3

The Most Overused Superhero Movie Plot

The story of how a superhero gained their super powers might be the most commonly told story in the superhero movie genre, but the most boring story, almost as frequently told, is to do with how a superhero has lost their superpowers.  You know, to prove it's not the powers that make them so super?

• Superman loses his powers in Superman II.
• Spider-Man loses his powers in Spider-Man 2.
• Thor loses his powers in Thor 1.
• Iron Man loses all the suits in Iron Man Three.
• Mystique, Rogue, Magneto, really just a bunch of people 'cure' their powers in X-Men 3.
• Wolverine loses his healing powers in The Wolverine, just enough.
• Professor X loses his powers in Days of Future Past. (and all the other movies?)
• Batman is depowered (so to speak) in The Dark Knight Rises.
  • Twice!
  • And then he quits again!
    • I think he quits in Batman Forever too.
• How about that movie where Nick Cage is an angel?
• Or that movie where Nick Cage is Ghost Rider 2?
• Or Hancock in Hancock?
• Or Men in Black 2?
• Or Austin Powers 2?
• Meteor Man?
• The Power Rangers movie?
• The new TMNT?

This is the dumbest superhero movie plot. It's like if all those horror movies where someone takes ten seconds to go "damn! no cell reception!" so that they can get on with the movie made the next 75 minutes about the characters' journey to discover it was never the phone that made 911 calls, cellular communication was a gift that those characters had, deep inside their hearts all along.

Escape Room Reviews: Lunar Escape

Company: Maze Rooms
Room: Lunar Escape
Date Played: 7/2/16
Player Count: 3, which was plenty!

Success:  Success!

Premise: "You are on moon base, but the problem is, nothing works.  You know, like in movies? But there is rescue ship coming to get you!" You also need to grab a sample of a space rock on your way out the escape hatch.

Immersion: Everything we loved about The Castle's introduction was back with flying colors! However, in stark contrast to The Castle, this room is beautiful. The design and decoration is really top notch, the best I've seen. We got some costumes to wear.

Highlights: The set is fantastic. The finale is very cool, and the beginning has a couple of puzzles that are enjoyable to work though. All of the things you're not supposed to have or use, like your purse or phone, went into a plastic box that you take with you into the room. I like this approach.

Lowlights: One object was broken in a way that required the keeper to run in and fix it, which kind of breaks the spell of being stranded on the moon. At least one puzzle was solved by accident and we didn't understand why. Our keeper was too chatty on the radios, offering us hints, anti-hints ("that's not what you need to do"), or offers to skip ahead. I think we'd rather not communicate with the keeper unless we initiate it or we need, like, a safety warning. 

And Finally:   Compared to the other Maze Room we've played, this one had a very linear path. It was almost more like a guided story experience than a puzzle room. I think we physically needed three people in order to complete one part, but a bigger group is going to have a hard time finding enough things to do.

Out of 4 rooms escaped, Lunar Escape ranks #3.

How to book this room yourself: Visit http://la.mazerooms.com/quest/lunar-mission/

Bat Night 3!

Over at the Gangbusters! comedy enjoyment program, we're always proudly presenting stuff.  Coming up next week, we're proud to proudly present the return of Bat Night! 

And let me tell you, just from you to me, this is really going to be a show to see.  We have completely stacked the deck with friends of the show, friends of Jason, friends of mine. We've got improv, we've got sketch, we've got stand-up. We've got the famous Gangbusters! charity auction.  The only thing we don't have is any lights at all.

Join us this week for a show performed in environmentally-friendly complete darkness!

#2,290: Suicide Squad

Lights Out - ★★★½☆
ON'T STARTLE THE WITCH!

I think what appeals to me in a horror movie like this is that the movie magic is a little bit closer to the surface. Maybe it's creepy that the little girl is drawing and her paper disappears when she's not looking, but I have as much fun or more knowing it's just some PA leaning in and taking the paper while the camera's not looking.

I was already into this movie's deep and deliberately worrying frame compositions when suddenly, it seemed to me that this movie might have been shot in the same house as The Selling, and from then on I was searching for shots that could prove it.

Pete's Dragon - ★★★☆☆
Never saw the original, didn't really know what this was about, and it only dimly occurred to me during the trailers preceding this movie that we were about to receive a kids' movie.

It felt like a movie from at least 20 years ago, plus fancy dragon. Pete is always doing something so dangerous that it felt as though the movie could end at almost any time. There's a scene about halfway through that is innocently nerve-racking because the driver of a car just won't look at the road.

This year has been big for protagonists raised in the woods.

Hell or High Water - ★★★★☆
An unexpected late-summer gem. A highlight for the year so far, come ot think of it.

It's just refreshing to get a relatively straight-forward story that can be told with a minimum of visual effects houses' contributions. I, for one, find the practical, animatronic Jeff Bridges much more lifelike than the all-CG version.

Suicide Squad - ★½☆☆☆
I'm not so much angry as disappointed.

Everyone is reacting to this movie in much the way I felt about Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, Guardians -is- a better movie, but that's a low bar. The movie does everything twice - introduces all the characters twice, sends them on the same mission twice. The mission feels pointless. On the one hand, apparently global destruction has been unleashed, but on the other, the scale of the movie makes it feel like a cut scene you're sitting through for the nth time, in between beating up faceless okay-to-shoot zombie goons.

The plot is weak enough that the movie would probably be better not bothering with it. We need a team that can take down Superman? Okay, but this sure isn't it. Instead of making the whole movie hinged on Waller's clumsy failure to form a super squad, open with a clear goal: Fight Enchantress. Then you can reveal later on how she got to where she is (either a blunder or a deliberate ploy to show how useful this squad could be), and we can be all conflicted about how to feel about Waller and her motives.

I'm not excited about a alternate DVD cut with more of this terrible Joker, but I guess I'd like to see the movie the director was trying to make sometime.