Another escape room movie review! Escape Room 2: Tournament of Champions is the sequel to 2019’s Escape Room. Not to be confused with Escape Room, Escape Room, or Escape Room. In this chapter, the franchise takes a page out of The Hunger Games’ book and reunites winners of previous games in what they super subtly dub a “tournament of champions”.
The winners from the original movie (Zoey and Ben) head to New York on the hunt for Minos, the company that built the escape room labyrinth they escaped from. However, due to a series of incredibly well-timed maneuvers, they end up on a train with 4 strangers (previous Minos survivors) that transforms into the first of a series of deadly escape rooms.
The rooms in this chapter are impressive, though some start to push the limits of believability in terms of the tech Minos has devoted to this game. The beach scene you see in the trailer is especially cool. In terms of puzzles and clues I feel like the first movie was a bit more thought out, but there are still lots of clever things going on.
Now a word of warning. We left the cinema feeling a little meh about this movie. It didn’t quite have the nuance, tension, and impact that the first movie had. But all is not lost, because the home release is very different from what was released in cinemas. There’s a different opener, a completely new ending, and more story built up in between. The theatrical release is a C+, but the home release is A+ all the way.