Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 5, 2022

2019 will never be first remembered as the year the Escape Room franchise burst onto the scene, but here it is, just a couple of years later and the makings of a franchise are in full swing. The original film was a solid picture and a modest hit for Sony, capitalizing on the "escape room" craze that challenges participants to seek out carefully hidden, yet still plainly visible, clues in order to perform a series of tasks in order to break out of the room. Of course, in these movies there is actual danger, real consequences for failure (and usually on a time crunch at that), which is why the films have found a niche: there's both danger and immediacy as clues must be sorted and sifted, analyzed and applied at breakneck speed under grave threat to life and limb. This sequel ups the ante for room complexity and world exploration, building a dark tale of unnerving danger and unrelenting horror, all the while offering some satisfying peeking behind the curtain that is sure to push the envelope further forward in whatever future installments may see the light of day.

This 2021 sequel drops a gaggle of past escape room "champions," most of whom are unknown to the audience, and assembles them for an all-star gathering of puzzle solving with life and death consequences. Amongst the returning guests are first film heroes Zoey Davis (Taylor Russell) and Ben Miller (Logan Miller) who are traumatized by their ordeal and wish to expose, and bring down, the evil Minos. As the games begin, the bodies pile up, the nerves fray, and the opportunity to bring the nefarious organization behind these games appears to be slipping away. It will take calm in crisis, and plenty of bravery, to not only survive the games but uncover the truth behind them.

If the original film was reminiscent of Cube, this sequel feels like something out of the Saw playbook. Granted this is far less grisly but it does hearken back in that direction that sees unwilling, everyday people forced to comply or die in a grisly game of life and death, forced to piece together various puzzles before the clock invariably runs out. At each room's disposal are several basic puzzle ingredients -- clues hidden amidst a mountain of worthless information, usually resulting the process of inputing the right string of numbers, for example, into a computer or lock (one character even rants and raves about the lack of originality tied to such a puzzle at one point late in the film) but even if the process isn't imaginative, the rooms themselves are. Each of them is uniquely designed with traps that blend danger and urgency, tight spaces (but not too tight to operate the camera and allow half a dozen or so people to work around the environment), and all but certain death for at least one player. The film works well because its rooms are uniquely designed and the level of complexity is refined. The film does allow the camera to linger on a key secret well before the characters see it. The audience is always one step ahead, then, but the film's chaotic narrative and quick-fire pacing keep it feeling fairly fresh, anyway.

The characters are not particularly special. They weren't in the first film, and they aren't here. They're little more than fodder for the rooms, which are the real stars of the movie, anyway, and each room has more personality than all of the humans combined. Even stars Taylor Russell and Logan Miller seem to realize that they're merely support pieces in the larger puzzle, but credit them, and the full cast, with bringing enough energy to the parts to mask any structural shortcomings. That is the film's top strength: it's relentless pacing and high energy intensity. There are a few good character beats, most of them coming in the extended cut and towards the end, but with the main cast proper it's basically a question of who will die next, and how, that keeps the movie marching forward.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions features a fairly standard 1080p transfer. The digitally shot motion picture looks quite nice in total, revealing excellent details and fine-point textures that bring all of the characteristics of the various escape rooms to life with impressive depth and clarity, vital in the process of soaking in all of the critical information -- signage, numbers, points of wear, and the like -- that altogether play important roles in how the characters interact with and maneuver through each room. Of course, basics like faces and clothes are in fine working order, too. Viewers will appreciate dense pores and finely defined hairs in close-up. Colors are very nice. Much of the film takes place in lower light, but even as output permits colors are nicely saturated and finely tuned to just the right output parameters. Black levels are very deep and healthy, and skin tones appear accurate. Noise is kept to a minimum and the picture suffers from no further source or encode anomalies. This is a good all-around performer from Sony.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions' DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is very impressive. Bass is plentiful; listeners will never feel shortchanged in the low-end department and indeed high yield subwoofer output is one of the chief elements the sound design utilizes to reinforce the frightful rooms and their various traps. The track further opens with plenty of surround information, such as electricity bolts charging around the stage during the first puzzle throughout much of the 30-minute stretch. Music soars with excellent width and depth, top end clarity, and plenty of volume. Light atmospheric elements are often incorporated in order to better draw the listener into the less chaotic moments in the various rooms. Dialogue is clear and center positioned for the duration.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Escape Room: Tournament of Champions includes three featurettes. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with a non-embossed slipcover. The disc additionally includes two cuts of the film: Theatrical Version (1:28:03) and Extended Version (1:35:45).

• Dazzling but Deadly (1080p, 5:50): How the escape rooms themselves are the real stars of the movie. This piece looks through the key room locations seen throughout the film.
• Game of Champions (1080p, 5:10): Looking at the characters new and returning and the dynamics they bring to the film and the escape rooms.
• Upping the Ante (1080p, 3:55): Capitalizing on the first film's sucess and building new ideas for this film's escape rooms.
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is hardly high art, but what it is is a very entertaining adrenaline shot that makes living characters from its various trap rooms and uses its characters as the set pieces working with them, In that way it's something of a reverse engineered movie, but it works because it's lean and focused on what works. Franchise in the making? Maybe...hopefully. There are some real possibilities here if the studios and filmmakers allow for the world to grow rather than repeat the same successes that has brought the franchise this far. The Blu-ray is solid, featuring very good video and audio presentations. A few extras and two cuts of the film are included as well. Recommended.