Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Movie Review

I'll give the movie this: It certainly made the theater feel like an escape room. A sequel to the January thriller from 2019, Escape Room: Tournament of Champions brings all of the same people (minus a few actors, obviously) that worked on the first movie back for round two. Anybody who saw the first movie knows that this sequel had quite a bit to live up to, as, without giving too much away, the first movie did leave a ton of questions unanswered. But even if the film doesn't resolve that, it still has the potential of being a fun thrill ride, right? Potential is the key word.

Quick Thoughts on the First Movie

I saw the first Escape Room this past Wednesday night before seeing the sequel, and I genuinely found it to be a well-crafted, suspenseful, well-paced, and creative thriller that played with its idea effectively..... For the first two thirds. In its last third, it goes downhill by setting up all kinds of ham handed coincidences and spending too much time sequel baiting. There was at least one other creative escape room, but aside from that, it didn't wrap things up as well as it should have. I am glad I saw it, though, at least for those first two thirds, and I was glad that it got a sequel since it spent so much time hyping us up for the sequel.

And what exactly becomes of that? We'll get to that in the proper section.

The Story

In this sequel, Zoey and Ben from the first movie take a trip to track down Minos, the organization that almost killed them in the first movie, in an attempt to bring them to justice. This leads them to a train car that they later find out contains four other survivors of the escape rooms that detatches from the rest of the train to throw them into another round of escape room survival.

What's Good About It

The Bank Escape Room is Cool

There's one escape room that I found creative, suspenseful, and cool looking. In it, they're in a bank, there's a safe on the other side of the room that serves as the exit, and between them and it was a series of tiles where, if you step on the wrong one, it activates deadly lasers. Out of five escape rooms, that one was the most engaging.

Other Bits:

-It looks nice

What Doesn't Work About It

The Film Has No Respect for its Audience's Intelligence

Part of the fun of the first movie was trying to figure out the puzzles along with the characters. It knew just how much information to give so that we could play along in their deadly game. In this one, everything is either spelled out for you (There's one part where the film shows you everything in its power to visually tell you that their train car is becoming electrified, and they still have one character flat-out say "This whole car is completely electrified!") or it throws so much information at you that you can't keep up with it, so either way, you just sit there bored.

The Pacing is Awful

Whether it's in what's supposed to be quieter moments or in its thrilling moments, this movie never takes a breath. It's just constant noise and constant talking with no space or rest inbetween. A similar comparison would be Rise of Skywalker; if you've seen that, this movie is a similar experience. A good example of how rushed this movie is: You remember in the first movie where the characters all had that moment where they just sit in a room and talk before the action started up? Yeah, they just jump right into the action here.

It Never Answers Any of the Lingering Questions

If this is the reason you're considering going to see this movie, I would advise you save your money. Not only does this movie NOT resolve any cliffhangers from the first movie, but without giving anything away, I think it raised even more questions. The series, so far, is playing out like a TV show; leaves you hooked on a cliffhanger to get you to watch the next episode, only to have that episode leave you on another cliffhanger for the next episode. There is one key difference between the two, though; I generally only have to wait a week for an episode of a TV show. NOBODY IS GOING TO WAIT TWO YEARS FOR YOU TO DUPE US AGAIN!

Other Bits:

-The Ending is Predictable, but Also Farfetched

Where Should You See It? In Theaters (HEAR ME OUT)

Now, let me make this perfectly clear: I'm basically suggesting that you don't see this movie at all. It's garbage and I don't recommend it..... But if you HAVE to see it, seeing an escape room movie in a dark theater is still the better experience. It honestly makes me wish I had seen the first movie in theaters.

Overall Thoughts

I hope that my hatred of this movie was made clear enough. It's not fun, thrilling, or engaging in the slightest. Its pacing is rampant, there's never a sense of a cognitive process, and it just leaves you with more questions than answers. I didn't love the first movie, especially not as much as I wanted to, but anything enjoyable about it is absent here. Bottom line: Lock this one up and throw away the key, because my timer has just run out.

My Rating: