Monday, August 26, 2019

Movie review: Escape Plan 2: Hades

 
Years after escaping a supposedly inescapable prison, security expert Ray Breslin has created a new security team. But when team member Shu is abducted and held inside a new inescapable prison named Hades, Ray finds himself behind bars once again.

Sylvester Stallone (Ray), Dave Bautista (Derosa), Xiaoming Huang (Shu), Jesse Metcalfe (Luke), 50 Cent (Hush), Wes Chatham (Jaspar), Chen Tang (Yusheng Ma), Tyron Woodley (Akala), Tyler Olson (Moe).

Escape Plan 2: Hades begins with a bit of history tied in with setup before stalling for a while before the main plot shows up. Characters in place, setup completed, the story begins to unroll and pretty much falls flat immediately. While revenge seems to be the main driver behind this sequel, there is a lot left unexplained from the How through the Why. What we are left with is action flick punctuated by apparent plot movement points that don't move a thing.

Acting was somewhat disappointing. Stallone just doesn't have the action hero chops anymore and even his delivery felt as if he was unsure. Bautista and Huang were both enjoyable in their roles. Metcalfe, Cent, Chatham and the remainder of the supporting cast were okay but probably looked worse due to the apparent lack of direction.

Camera work, sets, and backgrounds were decent enough. The high-tech prison still felt like a prison. Action scenes were okay at times but ones involving Stallone did him no service, hardly hiding the soft serve action and lack of physical ability. Dialogue was okay but could have added significantly more. Sound and soundtrack are okay.

Overall Escape Plan 2: Hades was a disappointment for us and no improvement over the first film. The plot was recycled with revenge added for differentiation, both of which were lost by the lack of support by anything else in the film. Those who loved the first film may enjoy this one.

With plenty of violence and foul language, this should be fine for older teens and above.

Released: 2018
Reviewed: 8.22.19
Star rating: 2 out of 5
Genre: Action, Crime, Mystery, Action & Adventure, Action Thrillers

copyright ©2019 Dave Riedel

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