Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

43% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 53 reviews)

Runtime: 88 minutes

Directed by: Adam Robitel

Starring: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Holland Roden, Thomas Cocquerel, Indya Moore

From: Columbia

Previously on Escape Room...

I went and saw this last night on the big screen; it was one of those places that serve food and that tasted fine, but between the bad crowd and other factors, I may not ever go there again. But even if those circumstances were different, I still would not have liked this movie. For its issues (including a bad ending), I thought the first Escape Room was fine as even though it was far-fetched, at least the characters worked well with each other as they tried to solve those puzzles.

This movie, it was even more divorced from reality and not just for the rooms that are so elaborate I wonder if it's either Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk that is funding this whole operation. This is only 88 minutes so at least it was short but that was at the expense of getting to know the new characters. If you did not revisit the first Escape Room, this helpfully saved you that (or a trip to Wikipedia) as in the opening they show highlights of that as if this was the back half of a two part television episode. From there it was outlandish moments. If you thought like me that the original movie's ending was poor, wait until you see the last 5 (that's what many will think) or 15 (me and some others) minutes of this sequel... talk about completely soiling the bed. That left a bad taste in my mouth.

That said, perhaps I am being too harsh here. At least there was still teamwork among these disparate characters in solving puzzles that showed creativity. The cast was also fine with the parts they were given. Plus, this is likely not the worst wide release that came out a few days ago... just from hearsay (plus me seeing one commercial for it) Space Jam: A New Legacy is horrifically bad: a product without soul, a total cashgrab and passionless nostalgia baiting. While the harshest negative reviews are PERHAPS a little hyperbolic, they are also funny reads. One of them was reading someone having an existential crises that he was part of the problem, viewing something so worthless as he feels the world is on a downward spiral and everyone else is blissfully ignorant of this fact! Yikes, that sounds like a motion picture worth avoiding.

I am sure I'd be more forgiving of Tournament of Champion's sins as I seen the worst sequel that's out now. At least it seemed like ToC was trying.