ESCAPE PLAN 2: HADES (2018) **

Escape Plan was a severely underrated latter-day Sylvester Stallone vehicle that not only gave us a proper Schwarzenegger and Stallone team-up but featured some of the duo’s best acting in years.  Because of that, I was excited when this sequel was announced.  Even though it went DTV without the benefit of Arnold, it does boast the participation of Dave Bautista.  Unfortunately, this Escape Plan is an undercooked and limp follow-up.  

Sly once again stars as “security expert” Ray Breslin.  When his team tries to extract a hostage, the plan goes south, and she winds up dead.  (“You trusted a computer more than your team and someone died!”)  Ray’s team member, Shu (Huang Xiaoming) becomes disillusioned after the incident and walks away from the business.  One year later, he gets arrested and is sent to a top-secret state of the art prison in which prisoners get into kickboxing matches in exchange for virtual reality seclusion.  It’s then up to Ray and the rest of his team to bust him out.

Even though Sly is given a reduced amount of screen time, he still equips himself nicely.  He doesn’t phone it in and his performance is easily the best thing about the movie.  For a good chunk of the running time, he appears as the voice inside Xiaoming’s head as he recalls Sly’s teachings in order to escape.  It’s a good way to make his presence felt, even if his screen time is scattershot.  

Bautista gets even less screen time, sadly.  He only shows up about every twenty minutes or so, which will definitely leave many fans wanting more.  He does get a good moment where he intimidates someone not with his muscles, but by quickly solving a Rubik’s Cube.  Unfortunately, these little moments of invention are fleeting.

Stallone and Bautista were also together in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 but didn’t have any screen time together.  Escape Plan 2 fixes that glaring error somewhat, even if the finished product is a misfire.  They do have a decent amount of chemistry together, enough to make you wish their next pairing will be in something a bit more reputable.  

50 Cent returns from the first film as Sly’s right-hand man, even if he isn’t particularly utilized all that well.  Jaimie King (who was also in director Steven C. Miller’s Silent Night) is similarly given little to do as another of Sly’s team members.  Titus Welliver is also wasted in the thinly written role of the warden.

As a fan of some of director Steven C. Miller’s DTV output, I had high hopes for this one.  There are a few weird moments here, like the robot nurses and the trio of bald, albino computer hackers, but not nearly enough to squeeze this one into the win column.  The action is also mediocre, and Stallone’s few fights and/or shootouts are underwhelming and forgettable.  It also doesn’t help that the CGI squibs, explosions, and muzzle flashes are incredibly cheap looking.

Also, it takes a good hour before Sly even gets sent to prison.  After that, he pretty much immediately figures out how to escape, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for suspense.  The gratuitous set-up for a sequel (which was filmed back to back with this) doesn’t hold a lot of promise either.