Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Review (Film, 2021)
content warning: gore, mental wellness, violence against women
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is a strong attempt to turn the unexpected hit Escape Room into the next big action/horror series. After a brief recap of the events of the first film, we rejoin survivor Zoey as she tries to convince her therapist that she really did live through the escape room. She is unsuccessful, but does take her therapist’s advice to go through with the trip to NYC for closure. Ben and her both survived the last game and discovered that the corporation running the deadly escape rooms is based out of an abandoned military complex in NYC. The corporation is clearly waiting for them, as they wind up in a new game comprised of previous winners of the escape rooms.
Director Adam Robitel returns to lead an excellent ensemble cast through the new escape room. Robitel’s strength as a horror director is seamlessly pulling off twists and turns on the weight of his cast’s shoulders. He’s an actor’s director, capable of bringing out the best in his performers. Let me just say that if this cast were playing these characters in a more prestigious film, you would already be hearing buzz about awards season.
Returning cast members Taylor Russell and Logan Miller (as Zoey and Ben) have so much more to do in Tournament of Champions. They’ve survived the trauma of the original game, which itself was inspired by their own traumatic accidents. We get to see them cope with their new reality. Zoey gets her flashbacks in her therapy appointment and Ben has terrible nightmares inspired by the shrinking room puzzle. The two are supporting each other as best as they can because no one else can understand what happened. Their relationship is stuck in this accidental allyship status built from necessity, not interest. Neither can move on until both find closure with the games.
The new cast members come from a similar place. They discover that each of the games is themed to test a certain population, but most games end with a handshake and a goodbye for the winner. Thomas Cocquerel is Nathan, a priest who questions every day why God spared him and not the other five priests he was tested with. Holland Roden is Rachel, a woman with a rare medical condition who is determined to temper any hopes that this game will allow more than one winner. Indya Moore is Brianna, a travel influencer who had to compete against her peers and collaborators to survive. Rounding out the core cast is Carlito Olivero as Theo, a man left deaf in one ear from the physical toll of his endurance-driven escape room.
The cast finds heartbreaking moments of honesty in their responses to being forced back into the game. They all know they can survive because they’ve done it before, but they don’t know if they’ll actually get a chance to. Right away, the clues promise that five out of six are guaranteed to die, and no one walks out of the first room without injuries. Perhaps the greatest common factor among these victors is compassion for their fellow competitors. Even knowing only one will win, they’ll risk their own lives to save someone who is as good as dead in the world of the game.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions has another major difference from the original film. This is clearly intended to launch a series. The twists and turns in the story work with the understanding that the creative team is treating this as a new franchise. There are questions from the first film that receive unexpected but rewarding answers. There are also still massive gaps that the characters and us know nothing about. For every new rule established about why the game exists, another question regarding the events of the plot is left to linger and cause doubt. The result lies at the intersection of Phantasm and Saw, building an expansive universe of doubt like the former while setting up a successful killer game formula like the latter.
It goes without saying that the production design is incredible on this film. The electrified subway car is the scariest room in the series so far. The seaside room slowly shifting to quicksand rewrites all the rules of the game. My personal favorite is the NYC street map, where the countdown clock on the crosswalk leads to a nasty surprise every 60 seconds. The film claims in the opening moments that whoever is betting on these games wants more extreme and challenging rooms, and the design of these rooms rises to the occasion.
Fans of Escape Room should not be disappointed by the sequel. It follows the same template with stronger storytelling, acting, and special effects. That also means people who were on the fence after the first one might find a lot more value in the sequel. My fellow deadly game fans will have a new film to add to the genre that has been growing at an almost exponential rate in recent years.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is in theaters now.
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