“The Stairs”: a mysterious staircase appears in the middle of the woods in the next horror film [Trailer]

The end of Escape room teased another doomed plane robbery for heroine Zoey Davis (Taylor russell) and his surviving companion Ben Miller (Logan miller). The implication being that they are once again one step behind in their quest to stop the evil Minos Corporation. Its sequel, Escape Game: Tournament of Champions, quickly bypass that ending and find a new way to bring the pair back to an elaborate new escape room more impressive than the previous one. When he sticks to that formula, the sequel mostly works. But Champions tournament rushes in to break his rules, taking back much of what worked with the first one.

After a bizarre but important therapy session that includes details of how a panic attack derailed Minos’ plane trap, Zoey and Ben choose to travel to Manhattan to prove the deadly escape rooms. Instead, they are lured into a subway car with four other occupants. When the rigged trap is triggered, the six realize that they have all survived Minos’ escape room and have unwittingly entered a new game that aims to determine the best of the best.

Just like the first, Champions tournament works best when focused on solving deadly puzzles in a series of intricately designed rooms. The electrified subway car provides a decent warm-up, but the production design of subsequent theaters often overshadows the sets from the first film. Director Adam robitel once again shows an ability to root the tension out of every room with increasingly gruesome means of dying. Especially against the chronometer, which is becoming even more demanding here.

While the sequel gives a brief overview of the four new players, namely the defining trait that shaped their respective games, that doesn’t bother the development much. The return of the two key protagonists lowers the stakes and condemns the new cast as fodder. It can be hard to invest when we never worry about Zoey, we’re just guessing which stranger will die next. This is fine for the most part because, again, the real star is the production design and the extravagant traps. But the third act quickly precipitates the familiar formula to plunge into a lackluster finale that picks up on certain aspects of the first. For the worse, the lack of care for the new cast is starting to worsen. Even returning players are not doing well.

Zoey is playing the star player role again, but it’s obvious her story hit a wall at the end of Escape room. Nothing new is added to his willingness to stop Minos, and it just becomes a tired retread in the third act. Ben doesn’t have much to do either, other than his role as a passionate supporter. In the end, the characters we were once rooted for turned into frustrating loops. With four screenwriters – Will Honley, Maria Melnik, Daniel Tuch, Oren Uziel – and credits from Christine Lavaf, Fritz Böhm, it’s surprising that the answer at the end of the first film is to offer, essentially, more of the same story. stagnant.

Like the first, the sequel works best when Robitel plays with the Escape Game format. Challenging fast-thinking characters as death encroaches, whether by fire, lasers or worse, is an exciting time. Fortunately, that makes up a big part of the sequel. It’s when he tries to break his own story rules and chooses to slow down to rehash the same story, thus weakening his protagonists’ interest in the process, that he stops being a game worth playing. to be played.

Escape Game: Tournament of Champions hits theaters July 16.