"Escape Room: Tournament of Champions" another irrationally thrilling escapism

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

2019’s “Escape Room” proved the January release stigma wrong by being a pleasant surprise and not a nothing burger. It was constructed with more intelligence and showmanship than expected, until nothing could really fix the crummy franchise-starter of an ending except for the arrival of a sequel. 31 months later, that’s exactly what we get with “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions,” which sounds like a “Hunger Games”-like remix on this “Saw”-but-hold-the-torture horror-thriller but more of the same crafty, breathlessly involving ride. Even if you don’t like playing strategy-centric games and solving puzzles yourself, it’s more exciting to watch characters do all the thinking and solving for us at a frantic pace where there’s no time to waste. 

Previously on “Escape Room” (in an efficient recap of the first film), Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) were the sole survivors of a Manhattan escape room designed and controlled by the evil, omniscient Minos Corporation. Somehow, nobody believes them. Seeing a therapist and trying to move on, everything PTSD-suffering Zoey sees is still a clue to her. When encouraged to face her fear of flying and get on a plane, Zoey has other plans. Following coordinates that lead to a government building in Manhattan where Minos is most likely setting up a new escape room, Zoey convinces the supportive Ben to make the road trip to the city, only to fall into another trap. Stuck on a runaway subway car, Zoey and Ben must put their heads together with four other survivors of Minos’ deadly games, including high-strung married man Theo (Carlito Olivero), self-loathing former priest Nathan (Thomas Cocquerel), sarcastic punk Rachel (Holland Rogen), and resourceful influencer Brianna (Indya Moore). As it goes, the sextet must play the game or die!

Director Adam Robitel returns with screenwriter Maria Melnick, along with a new team of writers (Will Honley & Daniel Tuch and Oren Uziel), and they turn the game and the stakes up to a slightly larger scale, even if they’re at fault for very often breaking their own rules to up the ante. The clues come so fast and the characters’ assumptions come even faster, but that’s the fun of something like “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” (yes, that subtitle even gets uttered). One game leads to another, from the electrified subway car with life-or-death spellcheck, to hopscotch of lethal-laser doom in an art-deco bank, to quicksand in a beach scene, to acid rain in a city-corner set. 

Both Taylor Russell and Logan Miller are such skilled actors and wear their emotions on their sleeves that Zoey and Ben always feel like fully-formed people worth rooting for rather than just chess pieces. The same can’t quite be said for the new players, who mostly become expendable fodder. Introductions for these four are naturally quick—who the hell has time to go around and share their exhaustive backstories when the clock is ticking?—but Indya Moore (FX’s “Pose”) and Holland Rogen (2020’s “No Escape”) do stand out with strong personalities. Is “the game never ends” epilogue still a cop-out? Sure. But Adam Robitel knows to push butts to the edge of the seats with neatly devised set-pieces filled with tension and beat-the-clock urgency. Like the first movie, “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” is another irrationally thrilling escapism that’s more fun than Robert Langdon’s scavenger-hunting and does what it says on the ticket. Another one, please and thank you.

Grade: B

Sony Pictures Releasing released “Escape Room: Tournament of Champions” (88 min.) in theaters on July 16, 2021.