by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
Welcome to another edition of “Jake reviews an adaptation of something he has no previous experience with.”
This time, we’re checking out Exit 8. The story follows a man (Kazunari Ninomiya) who finds himself trapped in a loop of a subway station with the only way to escape being to solve the puzzle the labyrinth presents. Made even more desperate by the fact that he’s just found out he’s become a father, he must navigate his way out a constantly changing challenge.
It’s an intriguing premise (and one that makes for a great trailer). When the film is at its best, I’m focused on the mystery and trying, like our main character, to figure out the rules and the path out of the maze that he’s in—deciphering clues and detecting the anomalies that are the key to escape.
The problem is, I’m not doing that often enough and there isn’t enough, story or character-wise, to get me invested in anything else.
By its repetitive nature, even at 95 minutes, the film is in danger of feeling like a slog by boring you with the same thing over and over again. Thankfully, there’s always a twist down the road. The film starts out in a POV style, before breaking that mold. (A change I was thankful for, because even 90 minutes was probably more than I could take of that.) Later, we get a shift in perspective that changes up the repetitive formula. The problem is that each of these changes come ever so slightly too late. I’ve already been wondering when things were going to start moving along. It’s not helped by the fact that I’m watching it at home one on my couch (since it didn’t come to theaters by me), leaving my mind open to wander in moments where the movie can’t keep my attention.
Another issue that I have is that anything the film is trying to say feels a little half baked. I understood the main thrust of forcing our sleepwalking main character to grow up and figure out if he’s father material, and it works until it gets muddied (more on that in a second). The second is a brief, ham-fisted mention of the monotony of the work week, which is surface level at best.
With the nature of the film being a puzzle, a lot is riding on the ending. Which is when something fromThe Last of Usseries and The Shining pops up and it just gets weird. Do I understand where the film is trying to lead me? Yes, but the departure from something that had stayed so minimalistic throughout until that point did more harm than good. It’s a departure from what I felt the film was doing throughout the majority of its run time (and, frankly, what I found most interesting about it).
In the end, the result is a film that doesn’t quite live up to the intriguing promise that sucked me in and ultimately has to go down as a disappointment.
Rating: Just Okay
Exit 8 is currently available to rent or buy digitally.
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