Escape Room Tournament of Champions: Now who decided to cut Isabelle Fuhrman from the main cut?

Director: Adam Robitel

Stars: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, India Moore, Holland Roden, Thomas Cocquerel, and Carlito Olivero

Where to watch: Rent on most platforms including Microsoft and Amazon

The original Escape Room movie was one of the biggest surprises of 2019 for me personally. Making a horror movie where people die trying to solve an Escape Room was a brilliant concept, and one I didn't think they'd be able to nail. Yet they managed to tell a mostly solid story, yes it has faults, but its entertaining and kept the viewer engaged from start to finish. One of those rare movies where the story was good enough that I wasn't annoyed with the creators expectation of a sequel without seeing how it does first.

Six people unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive as they discover all the games that they have played before.

The movie takes place shortly after the events of the first movie, and director Adam Robitel takes the time to montage and recap what happened with the 2019 story for everyone as a refresher for viewers that may have forgotten the overall concept behind Minos and their deadly escape rooms as well as backstory behind the two leads that survived. Its super appreciated as it doesn't take up much time, and allows us once again a quick entrance into caring for the incredible Taylor Russells' Zoey Davis, and Logan Millers' Ben Moore. Our leads are grief stricken, suffering through the torments of the things that they have seen within their game, and more importantly more motivated than ever to get revenge on the ones that put them there in the first place.

The cast is weaker than the first, and outside of Cocquerels' Nate- it is hard to care for any of the other champions. Nor does the writers attempt to make them captivating to root for, and that's fine. This movie is clearly about Zoey and Ben, and they're both interesting enough that the viewer is fully behind them solving the game they've been forced into yet again- which by extension makes you have a distant interest in the other champions to help our leads exit the rooms. Russell is incredible, and her character Zoey is fleshed out well and so interesting despite still being a much quieter lead than what is usually expected. Millers' Ben feels a little different from his first film, sure that's called character growth, but its not a good growth when Ben has become more insufferable and irrationally angry at everyone. Countless times Ben would use unnecessary tone with the others that would feel so out of place considering the dialogue he would have with Zoey.

The reason behind the movies itself is solving the puzzles. That bend all logic and are easy to nitpick considering even more than the first time the scenarios feel pretty insane for most, let alone any of them to get out alive. That is not an issue to me, after all we've been here- we know the rules of this world and we understand to not fully question any logic behind if that could actually happen. Rather, as viewers of the first we become engrained more in the puzzles and attempting in our own way to solve the puzzles and help the champions throughout the various rooms they encounter. The rooms are nowhere near as memorable as the first movie, but there's still so much fun to be had and they're different enough that it feels fresh and new, not just a rerun of its original. Much like the first, big props to the production design crew who once again deliver some absolutely incredible rooms- never missing a detail as they neatly put together these rooms so stunning, that they take you out from helping to do the puzzle long enough to appreciate each bit of them

The movie sets itself up for a third movie, and that's totally fine- I think a third is the perfect way to cap off the escape room saga- and allow for Minos to finally meet some justice, or not. Who knows an organization this incredible might be able to spawn their own mega movie universe out there.

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