Psychological-horror sequel Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is distributed by Sony. Still traumatised from the Minos Corporation’s “sole survivor” escape rooms, Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) track down the organisation’s headquarters in New York and head there to confront them. However, there they are tricked into entering another series of elaborate and deadly escape rooms, along with four other survivors of Minos’s rooms – a Tournament of Champions. Now Zoey and Ben must work together with four strangers (Thomas Cocquerel, Holland Roden, Indya Moore and Carlito Olivero), who are all also traumatised by their past escape room experiences, if they are to have any hope of surviving.
CONS
- Adam Robitel’s direction is quite uncertain, lacking focus at points and he also cuts corners at various points. Furthermore, his vision is unclear as he obviously is trying for some truly shocking content at various points but then plays it incredibly safe.
- A muddled and rather rushed narrative which cuts corners at a number of points and features a number of rather contrived moments (including and especially the beginning set-up and final conclusion).
- The cast generally ham it up quite a lot and over-act – their performances lack any naturalism, they have minimal characterisation to work with and there is a sense that they lack clear direction.
- There is some very poor CGI utilised in the puzzle scenes, while the use of make-up effects is absolutely minimal, with what there is being of low quality and being an example of the filmmakers playing it safe.
PROS
- The escape rooms themselves feature very elaborate production designs that are rich in smaller details, with the puzzles themselves resultantly being rather intricate and very clever, whilst also utilising good practical effects, which will be especially appealing to escape room enthusiasts and, well, any viewer who wants to solve the puzzles.
VERDICT: 2/10
Pete Kirkpatrick's Reviews 