Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

(Amazon Streaming, November 2022) Looking at my notes, I was sort-of-pleasantly surprised by the first Escape Room film: It had its moments, some slick production values and, by structuring itself episodically in very different environments, was able to score a few highs and sweep away its lows. The overall framing device wasn’t anything new (dark web online betting again? Oh boy!) but the chance to see Taylor Russell once again dealing with devilishly overengineered traps was once again too sweet to miss. Alas, sequel Escape Room: Tournament of Champions seems to prove the theory of diminishing returns—While it has a few engaging moments (the best being the first two escape rooms) and a dynamic, colourful style that brings to mind a slicker, not-so-grungy Saw series, it’s unable to surprise, not always clever, and finds itself locked in a conceptual trap of its own. By pivoting into what’s being built as an ongoing series, this second Escape Room announces itself as being limited by design: there will never be an escape for the characters (except through death), the conspiracy will never be defeated and the only thing left to focus on are the set-pieces. Russell remains a compelling presence throughout, especially since few of the supporting players show signs of life—but the point here are the escape rooms rather than characters or compelling plot. Here too, the going is uneven: The first and second set-pieces (the subway car and the bank) are engaging because the film takes the time to establish sane rules and escalate them, with an appropriate amount of friction and loud music to raise the tension. The other sequences get more convoluted, more hurried and borderline nonsensical (the acid rain thing is too stupid for words), making the film progressively less interesting. And let’s not talk about the overarching story, because Tournament of Champions only scores surprises, not twists: The entry of the participants into the new escape rooms makes no sense yet is incredibly predictable (to the point of being exasperated at the film taking this long to come clean)—the same goes for the not-surprising-at-all “twist” at the end of the film. The revival of a character thought dead at the end of the first film counts as a surprise because it’s from left field, but then they go on to fumble what they could have done with it. So, yeah—Tournament of Champions’ few good moments don’t make up for the worse ones nor the brain-dead predictability of a series that now seems headed for the franchise factory. We may get a few interesting over-engineered escape-room sequences in the next few instalments, but don’t expect it to be good ever again.