This escape room thriller on HBO Max will surprise you in the end

A man wakes up in a room without windows and metal walls. You have no idea how it got there. Find a sarcastic robot guard for company. When you try to escape from the prison cell, strange things happen, and in the third scene, you will probably experience deja vu from the day you saw Ex Machina or Moon.

2016 Infinity Chamber – currently streaming on Amazon prime – essentially follows everyone’s favorite “sci-fi mystery movie” template. There is a haunting backdrop, a clear integration of humanity and technology, and a clever protagonist who appears to be the voice of reason as he grapples with a curious dilemma.

Regardless, his cerebral history immerses you enough to root the main character through the finish line as he performs a posthuman version of escape-the-room.

And if you climax, a pleasure awaits you.

Built on an impressively low budget of just $ 125,000, partially funded by Kickstarter, the perplexing film by director Travis Milloy experiments with a complex plot that will test your ability to predict endings and your patience.

As Frank Lerner (Christopher Soren Kelly) tries to get out of his abandoned and closed place, he is flooded with lucid dreams of sitting in a quaint coffee shop and talking to a charming barista named Gabby (Cassandra Clark).

Immediately afterward, Frank abruptly awakens once more in his small room with only Howard’s company, an assigned machine buddy reminiscent of 2001: Hal from a space odyssey, Tens from Interstellar, and Gerty from Moon.

This sequence, which supposedly explains Frank’s incarceration, is repeated over and over … and over again, giving the Infinity Chamber its claustrophobic vibe. Meanwhile, the warm and cool robot Howard doesn’t have much to say about this. Howard’s only job is keeping Frank alive.

As the movie progresses, you start to realize what is really going on, with Frank, Howard, and even Gabby.

A self-proclaimed excellent twist-guesser, he was prepared to dismiss Infinity Chamber as a satisfying retelling of the classic apocalyptic survival story. It’s one of a host of movies involving people looking to get out of a box-like room into a dystopian world. Some that fall into that niche genre include 1997’s Cube, 2008’s Fermat’s Room, 2009’s Exam, and most recently 2019’s Escape Room.

But for the last 15 minutes of the movie, I blurted out some involuntary “wait, what” that were quickly followed by goosebumps fueled by shock. Infinity Chamber distinguishes itself by taking overused tropes and adding flavor.

The chamber is not just a room. Howard is not just a sarcastic AI and dreams are not random.

But while the ending of Infinity Chamber is satisfying enough that the film is considered a solid option for a glass of wine and relaxing during the week, it is not without its shortcomings. Those come from the film’s mid-story subplots.

The film presents a love story, the notion of existing in your own dreams, the question of whether humans can really bond with artificial intelligence, and prison ethics like the one Frank finds himself in.

However, instead of delving into those concepts, a lot of time is spent repeating Frank’s pain of residing in the metal chamber and building up to the first milestone, one that is so obvious that he was confused by how it was supposed to be a surprise. . absolutely.

Just halfway there, Infinity Chamber starts to get a bit bored before picking up again for act three. Perhaps that could have been resolved by exploring the movie’s other juicy sci-fi ideas – there were plenty of interesting avenues left untouched.

Still, from start to finish, Infinity Chamber is a delight. The tight budget and limited drawbacks are hardly noticeable due to impeccable production quality, superb acting, and a clever story chillingly tied together in its final scene – one that makes the entire hour and 38 minutes 100% worthwhile.