In a quickly turned around sequel, Escape Room Tournament Of Champions, returns with the spoiler alert two survivors of the 2019 surprise hit to face another round of rooms hosted by the shadowy Minos Corporation.
Six people unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive and discovering they’ve all played the game before.
So, the Saw/Cube/Hostel hybrid returns for another go around in what is seemingly the successor to the annual trap-fest that was Saw. In a film that feels like it should have been produced by the Screen Gems studio, this glossy, slickly designed movie is actually pretty enjoyable for the most part.
After a quick flashback of the first films highlights we are flung right back into the action with Zoe, Ben and a group of previous game survivors (Which could lead to a whole menagerie of spin-offs) end up right back in the thick of the action as Tournament Of Champions wastes no time getting to the action you’ve all paid to come and see. With some seriously heart pounding moments (the opening Tesla coil train carriage, escaping from the Laser Vault room) and a cast you actually care about (Taylor Russell’s Zoe and Logan Millers Ben) despite no real character development, it somewhat an fun romp through some seriously disturbing and mean spirited trap rooms.
With the stark warning at the beginning “Everything is a clue” you’d be best placed not to accept anything at face value. A retconned sequence from the first film, is a glaring pointer to a twist that comes your way in the third act and the ending is frustratingly “here comes part 3” with a Joker like gloating smile from the film makers, but hopefully without ending up in a case of diminishing returns as per most horror franchises, Escape Room 3, is going to have to serious up the ante on the rooms and the plotting to ensure it doesn’t end up like Final Destination or the Saw sequels, which despite some flashes of brilliance, were basically rehashes with stupider plot contrivances and plot twists to alleviate the audience of their ticket money.
Overall Escape Room – Tournament of Champions is just about more hit than miss, hopefully at some point the shady Minos will reveal themselves some more, because currently there’s no win factor for the protagonists, that will enthuse people about watching more chapters as nobody likes a game you can’t win.
Escape Room Tournament Of Champions is in cinemas everywhere now