Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021) - Movie Review

What do you get when you attempt to make a sequel out of a movie that, in my personal opinion—outperformed expectations utilizing the surviving characters and an equally impressive budget?

A complete failure on every single level.

Let’s discus…

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is the much-anticipated follow-up to 2019’s Escape Room brought by the criminally underrated director of the original film, Adam Robitel and three writers! Three writers for a horror films is an immediate red flag. That means there were re-writes and when there are rewrites in a simple concept horror film—you’ve either got studio interference or someone dropped the ball haaaaaard.

The film focuses on the returning lead characters of Zoey and Ben as they cope with the trauma they experienced in the deadly game put on by the shadowy Minos Corporation. Ben has continued improving his life, he’s stayed sober is well on the path to complete his degree. Zoey on the other hand has become even more of a train wreck than she was at the start of the first movie.

I liked the original Escape Room. I expected it to be another lame, Cube ripoff, but was presently surprised with the film overall. It took that Cube dynamic and spun it into a nearly believable modern day popcorn film. It was fun, flashy, and incredible to watch. The spectacle of the different rooms was breathtaking…

…and somehow they completely dropped the ball here. I mean, sequels are almost always going to be worse than the originals. I mean being derivative is inherent to all sequels in someway with a few exceptions—I’m looking at you Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, you beautiful bastard.

Tournament of Champions is a unique case though. The first Escape Room was perfectly set-up as a franchise. It was simple premise with likable survivors and endless possibilities for new horrific traps. It could have been an almost family friendly version of the SAW franchise. Even more than that, fans of this movie are rabid in the best way. Just look online and you’ll find diehard Escape Room folks who do fan fiction, fan art, and filled reddit and other message boards up asking when this sequel was coming. They had the keys to something special, but they somehow missed the keyhole.

It’s a real shame too. They had 2 solid young leads who could have done a few movies together. Taylor Russell is a gorgeous talented actress that you can’t help but root for and Logan Miller has an Elias Koteas quality to him. The first movie ended with them having a palpable chemistry—and that leads into the problems with the new film.

It’s as if the filmmakers didn’t see the original movie. At the end of the first film, Zoey is resolved to chase down Minos and end their schemes and Ben reluctantly agrees, but at the start of this movie—Zoey is back to being a basket case and Ben is back to being a useless coward. They try to explain it away with a weird, half-assed excuse that she has PTSD, but it’s so lamely executed and barely even touched upon that it’s a blink and you’ll miss it explanation.

And then there’s the story.

…

…

Oh wait—there isn’t one!

Our heroes get onto a subway car and boom, they’re in a new game with a handful of other characters we know nothing about and learn very little about after. We have no character development or world building, we just see these stereotypical racial / sexual orientation caricatures get on a train and then they start dying at a fast clip. It’s a real shame too, because they have good actors in the roles, but you quickly realize that they’re just set dressing.

I was excited to see the star of Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block Holland Roden and Pose’s India Moore in the cast list, but they are just there to die. We learn nothing about them other than a brief rundown of their game and the theme of the game they won. Then, poof—exit screen left.

Oh and the games this go around? They’re incredibly over the top, but somehow come off as less impressive due to the lack of investment in the characters. The special effects are still good and the traps are believable enough, but because you as the viewer give 0 fucks about anyone in this movie it’s a wasted effort.

There’s literally no plot or conflict, it’s just movement, but even then the movement is stilted and jagged due to poor editing and directing. In many scenes it feels like the actors adlibbed their actions or dialogue, it’s just messy execution overall.

But Wait… There’s More!

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The ending of this movie thinks it is so smart. It thinks it's a big brain genius, but oh my god it’s nonsensical and for someone who hasn’t seen the original film, they’ll be completely nonplussed.

Amanda, a character from the first movie who is apparently the cause of Zoey’s PTSD is the game master this go around. Not only that, but Amanda may actually be evil. She says her daughter’s life is on the line, but it’s oddly implied that Amanda has been a villain going back to the first movie.

What?

Huh?

What a mess.

I can’t recommend anyone watch this movie. It’s not really a movie as there isn’t a story told. It would look great as a demo reel in your local Best Buy’s Television department. Other than that, avoid this disaster.