As in the first film, Taylor Russell again stands out as a personable, attractive and convincing actress.It was perhaps hoping for too much that his sequel - "Escape Room: Tournament of Champions" - would be better. I only gave Adam Robitel's original "Escape Room" 5/10. I had a really good time with 'Escape Room: Tournament of Champions' and would recommend people check it out.
This one follows a similar formula, but has some unique twists and turns to add something to the series as well. If you enjoyed the first 'Escape Room' you're almost certainly going to have a good time with this one too. It makes them a little hard to care for, and makes them feel quite expendable. There's a scene where everyone goes around the circle and says their name, and that's about the extent of the development we get for a lot of them. The only criticism I'd suggest was that some of the new characters could have done with a little fleshing out. There's a really good balance found here.
People who like horror are able to enjoy the action elements just fine, and people who don't like horror know that the movie isn't setting out to scare you or gross you out at all. These movies are almost like a hybrid of the horror and action genres and I think that is one of the reasons they work so well. It's short at only 88 minutes, but even then it's over before you know it. We know the stakes are high and (almost) no character is safe. It has a strong enough story going on that it really doesn't have to. People still die in some pretty horrific ways, however the movie isn't going out of its way to rub your face in it. Both of the movies in this series have PG-13 ratings, but it really doesn't take anything away from either of the movies as far as I can tell. You just have to accept them for what they are and sit back and enjoy the ride (if you can). There are some elements to this movie that are so far-fetched they don't even try to explain them. I'll start by saying if you struggle with suspension of disbelief in films then you are going to struggle with this one a lot. So here we are two years later getting that follow-up, and I have to say it was a pretty darn good movie all up.
Plus the ending of the first one basically demanded it (an ending that is recapped at the beginning of this film in case you were wondering whether you needed to see the original first before this - although I would still recommend it for other things that crop up during the sequel). The movie was pretty well received and did well at the box office so of course a sequel was going to come along eventually. I really enjoyed the first 'Escape Room' film back in 2019 (it feels like longer ago than that for some reason). I would recommend the "Tournament" only to those fans of the original who don't have high expectations from the sequel. Anyhow, the whole movie is pretty much just a set up for the final plot twist, and without spoiling anything I'll just say that the twist is just preposterously unexpected and will leave many viewers scratching their heads out of bafflement as it just raises many new questions. Also, all the deaths are absurdly elaborate, involving some fantastical contraptions that look like they came out of an unusually stupid episode of the original Star Trek series but this was probably done because more realistic and explicit death scenes would restrict the film's access to younger audiences. The first Room in the original movie was one of the movie's best scenes, as it slowly built up the atmosphere and gave both the characters and the audience enough time to think, whereas the first "Room" in this one is just ridiculous, with everything happening way too quickly and all the characters screaming in such an annoying way. However, the 2nd Escape Room is shorter and has a much faster pacing than the first one, but most importantly everything is just so chaotic and messy all around. This is a direct sequel to the surprisingly successful 2019 movie (which I personally liked), so you should really watch that one first if you haven't already.