After its big box office success with the previous installment released at the start of the year 2019 (155 million revenue for 9 million budget), Adam robitel recurrence with the direct continuation of his saga. The filmmaker continues the story with his two characters “Survivors” of the first opus, namely Zoey (Taylor Russell McKenzie) and Ben (Logan Miller) who live together a new session ofEscape Game designed by the organization Minos in the company of former participants (hence the name Tournament of Champions in VO).
This second film puts the small dishes in the big ones with other pieces with very interesting themes thanks to a better budget ($ 15 million). We really appreciate the logic of the different pieces. However, and this is the catch of a scenario that is supposed to move quickly, the players find the puzzles and the logic of the pieces far too quickly and we, the spectators, do not have time to search for the solutions too.
The events settle at an impressive speed, which prevents the film from being able to do anything else like develop its characters so that one becomes attached, at least, to them. Because this is obviously not the case. The saga Escape Game seems to focus on his trap coin system far more than the rest. Especially since a third film, given the final climax, clearly seems to be in the pipeline.
Escape Game 2 also explodes in mid-flight, the fault of Adam robitel for wanting to constantly expose clues as to the exact nature of its history with far too much ease. Those who have seen Escape Game first of the name can easily guess the end of it thanks to the opening sequence.
Add to that clichés in shambles with archetypal characters (The priest who wants to help his neighbor, the same strong woman as in the first opus, the idiot on duty …), a constant desire to hide violence to keep a PG-13 classification for more recipes and the peculiarities of the first film left aside (No character thinks of his own face unlike Jason in the first film) and you will get a misshapen movie, which doesn’t go straight, where nothing goes. Probably obsessed with his concept, Adam robitel fails to come up with something tangible and sticky. Finally, the film could have benefited from some explanations (and in particular the reason for a secret double passage from one room to another) but don’t even bother.
After two films, we no longer have any element that allows us to understand the antagonists. It is not known what the direct magnitude of the threat is. In summary, if a third phase takes place (and it will happen since the film is already recording more than double its budget – 36 million receipts), we will have to manage to detach ourselves from the simple pastiche of rooms Escape loopholes in an attempt to densify the story.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5.
“A film too condensed, full of flaws and which delivers too many clues about its script over the minutes”