I love a good puzzle film, whether it’s a murder mystery or an escape room, and I really enjoyed the first Escape Room because it had a lot of interesting traps and a lot of interesting backstory for the characters too. So when I saw this come to Netflix I thought I had to give it to go to see if it held up to the first, and while it was still very fun to watch, my god were there issues!

Tournament of Champions follows the two victors from the first Escape Room film as they end up unknowingly in a situation where they are surrounded by other champions of different games, and basically the tormentors are trying to make them go through the escape rooms again for their own enjoyment. Within this escape room situation we have an electrified train, an outside New York city strip that includes acid rain, and a quick-sand filled beach scenario. Each of the rooms has something really interesting to it and of course the puzzle element is there which I really enjoy, and that wasn’t the problem I had with this film, the problem was the editing…

The storyline was great, the characters were really interesting and fleshed out for the most part, and I found the twist at the end really interesting too because you can see how it would work in this situation, but the editing of this film was absolutely dire. There were so many moments where dubbing was involved for the actors and so what they were saying on screen wasn’t actually what you were hearing, and because you could literally see their lips move saying different words it really pulled you out of the immersion because it was so poorly done. Lines were used repetitively, so if one character said another character’s name they would then say it again a few seconds later and you knew it was just the same line edited as if they said it twice, but they didn’t. Overall the film is great but the editing just pulled you out of it so much and it was so obvious and in your face that you couldn’t even ignore it if you wanted to. The other thing was I watched it on the laptop so I cannot imagine watching it on a bigger screen and seeing in 4K all of the mistakes that were made.

It’s really sad because I think this film could be really good if they hadn’t made those choices, and it was so obvious at times that of course, because you’re second guessing everything anyway you kind of wonder is the editing on purpose? Are they trying to show us that what we’re seeing isn’t exactly what is reality and are they messing with the audience too? But I really don’t think that’s the case and I don’t think the movie’s clever enough to do that anyway.

So if you want a fun movie to watch and enjoy a bit of torture porn and puzzles then this is a great film for that, the puzzles are just as fun as the first film and the twist at the end is absolutely fantastic, I do hope it doesn’t open itself up to another sequel because I can’t imagine what that would be like. But for this type of film genre to continue with the puzzle aspect I would love because it’s right up my street and something that I really enjoy diving into and trying to figure out the puzzles myself too.

What do you think of Escape Room 2?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding