phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2021

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 28min
Country: USA, South Africa
Language: English
Genre Tags: Action, Adventure, Horror
Plot Summary: Six people unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive. Joining forces with two of the original survivors, they soon discover they've all played the game before.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: It's fine popcorn fare. Did you like the first one? It's the same. Bunch of clever rooms, awkwardly bookended by some world building that purports to explain a larger picture, but actually explains almost nothing at all. Still, I'd watch another one. They're like PG-13 Saw movies, except the protaganists actually work together and don't just shout at each other. Teamwork makes the scream work!


Outside Reviews:

Simon Abrams
2.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions moves at an alarming pace, and that helps to establish just how impersonal many of the movie's traps are. Human error - or uncertainty - is the biggest source of tension in this movie, and it goes a long way towards making this sequel (a little) more than the sum of its flashy parts. You may not need another Escape Room, but this new one is good enough to leave you wanting more.


Jesse Hassenger
Grade: C+ - Tournament Of Champions fails to take Escape Room to the next level

As the heroes make their way through (or don't), the movie shows almost too much faith in its own premise. Tournament Of Champions opens with a previously-on reel, followed by a number of flashbacks woven into its first proper scene - not the most promising start to a feature film, but also a respectful recognition that even fans of the first movie might be wandering into this one in a late-pandemic daze, recalling the predecessor with less-than-perfect clarity. After 30 or 40 minutes, it becomes clear that, despite a few more callbacks, this is a more-of-the-same sequel, not a next-level sequel. At its best, the new deathtrap scenarios have a dreamlike quality, like the beach scene that suddenly tints into postcard fakeness with the flash of a camera. At their worst, they turn videogamey, forcing the audience to watch characters play through levels devised by returning director Adam Robitel and an astonishing six credited writers.