‘People have always been keen on watching people die…’
Despite wearing its influences on its sleeve (Cube, Saw, Hunger Games etc), 2019’s breakthrough horror hit Escape Room managed to add something new to the genre whilst also sparking off a potentially far reaching franchise. As long as director Adam Robitel could keep the titular escape rooms unique and gruesome, the opportunity was there for the Escape Room movies to pick up where the Saw films left off. Alas, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a marked step down in quality from the source material…
Despite having survived a horrific ordeal in the first movie, Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) inexplicably return to the world of escape rooms in order to… I’m not really sure. Gather evidence to entrap the nefarious forces that run these mysterious places? Either way, it’s an utterly ludicrous premise. Obviously upon arrival they are immediately plunged into terrible danger where they meet a number of other former survivors. And it all begins again.
It is worrying that only one sequel in, Robitel and his team of writers have succumbed to such a paper thin plot in order to justify more mayhem. And sure, the escape rooms themselves are imaginative and exhilarating (although not as much as the first movie), and sure the cast slightly elevate the material despite the hackneyed dialogue they are forced to deliver, but really, the whole thing should have been better than this.
Lazy is not a good look when attempting to establish a new horror franchise but that’s the word I would use to describe this film. It’s fine. The 90-minute runtime passed pleasantly enough. It’ll make plenty of money. But what’s the point of it all? What is this film adding to the genre? Very little, in truth. But will I watch Escape Room 3: Escape Room Harder? Well, we all know the answer to that, dear reader.