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@ryan_the_nixon
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Escape Room 2: Tournament of champions
2021
15
Director: Adam Robitel
Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Deborah Ann Woll, Thomas Cocquerel, Holland Roden, Indya Moore, Carlito Olivero etc
Escape Room 2: Tournament of Champions is about six people who unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive. Joining forces with two of the original survivors, they soon discover they’ve all played the game before. At its best escape room 2 was mediocre, at its worst it was an absolute cash grabbing mess.
My first few positives would be the set up and fun idea. The good cinematography. As well as the good character background and humour. I liked that the film gave the main two characters from the first film Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) some good background into where they were at with their lives and dealing with the aftermath of the first film. It gave you some insight into both characters and due to the attachment to them from the first film, set this up on the right path. I also thought the set up and general idea was fun and a good idea for a sequel. Having everyone competing having previously taken part in the games was a fun idea, and it made it more interesting in terms of it being different as to why they were all chosen. This added a compelling element to the film and set up a good mystery. I also thought the cinematography improved considerably within this film. You could tell they put a higher budget within the rooms and the overall look of the film, and it showed. With much more realistic and aesthetically pleasing rooms, and it made it look more like a film that could hold its own with other horror thrillers within this genre, so they stepped up in this department. I also thought some (not all as will be discussed in upcoming paragraphs) of the humour landed well. Some of the cast especially Logan Miller and Holland Roden had some good comedic chemistry, it bought some much-needed breaks within the tension to learn or just have that little moment with the characters to connect with them more.
Now for some negatives. The opening was unneeded, the dialogue was terrible. The characters were unfortunately direct copies from the first film and the performances were not very good. The opening for this film felt unneeded, it just repeated what happened in the previous film. It treated the audience who have all most likely have seen the first film like they were dumb. It just felt unnecessary and it was almost treated like a tv episode not another feature film. The dialogue was terrible. Extremely corny, simple, and ineffective. The script was lazy and amateurish and really cheapened the film. The writing really wasn’t up to standard and was a very noticeable issue. Unfortunately, the performances here were not very good, they ranged from laughably bad too mediocre. It just felt like a student film, no offense to the actors it might have just been how they were directed or the script, but all they were doing was shouting at the screen the whole time and reacting in an over-the-top manner, I did not see any star making performances here which is a shame. What also didn’t help this was the fact that the characters felt like direct copies of the ones from the first film. From how they looked or behaved, to even their specific role within the film. The new characters didn’t stand out at all and no effort was put into making the audience care for them.
My final few positives would be the tense tone, building of tension. The creative escape rooms. As well as the decent final twist and final act. The film was at its best when it focused on its escape rooms. They were fun and creative with some really interesting puzzles for the characters to solve. The bank escape room was incredibly strong and easily where the film was at its strongest. It executed a great tense tone and built tension very well, with the rooms unpredictable nature, and for those brief moments of adrenaline you cared about what happened to the characters. I also thought the final act and the plot twist was decent. I respect the film for going in a surprising and different direction that I didn’t see coming. Was it executed in the best way, definitely not but it added an interesting new dynamic to the film and rose the stakes well.
My final few negatives for the film would be the dumb character decisions, lack of character depth. Lack of development to the plot, and finally the odd creative decisions. This film was riddled with odd creative decisions and dumb character choices. It felt like the film deliberately removed the characters or seemingly killed them off to then have them reappear without any explanation twenty minutes later. It was creatively strange and made the film come across as very clunky to me, and the characters made too many dumb decisions, disobeying the other characters, or not listening to them even though they were right, it just came across as forced and irritating. I also thought that the characters lacked any form of depth. What I liked so much about the first film was that they spent time giving each character a motivation and some background so you could connect or understand them as people more. All of that went out of the window here, the film treated the characters like afterthoughts, with no background or depth so therefore my interest in them decreased as the film developed, it was very lazy writing. Finally, there just wasn’t enough development to the story, it just felt like a repeat of the first film with the escape rooms. They didn’t expand the story world or develop the villains at all keeping the audience in the dark to lazily set up another film. This made my interest in the film slowly decrease as nothing of notable was happening to expand the franchise.
Overall, Escape Room 2: Tournament of champions is a fun idea and is certainly watchable. With some creative escape rooms. But It offers nothing new and loses what worked so well with the first film. The tension got lower as my interest waned. Leaving you with a recycled, cheap, and messy sequel. That just honestly felt lazily made.
Overall rating 47/100
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