Escape Plan 2: Hades Movie Review

Escape Plan 2: Hades

Escape Plan 2: Hades
A; Action/Thriller
Director: Steven C Miller
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson, Huang Xiaoming, Dave Bautista
Rating:

This sequel to the largely lacklustre Escape Plan (2013) doesn't even have the rudimentary meanness to make the story interesting. In Escape Plan, Sylvester Stallone played Ray Breslin, a former prosecutor who processed his grief at the murder of his wife and child by establishing a Los Angeles-based security firm that tested the reliability of prisons from the inside, thus giving himself and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a feature-length excuse to break out.

Schwarzenegger has not been roped in this time - instead there are a few Asian actors lending stunt support. Stallone is still playing Breslin, operating a team that includes Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Hush, new blood Shu (Huang Xiaoming), a legitimate Chinese action star, among others, and his former mercenary buddy played by Dave Bautista, comes in at extra time.

The characters don't have much to do other than mouth a few words about the impregnability of Hades. Shu stage-manages an entry, and then attempts to analyse the prison's location and design while being forced to compete in "battles" with other inmates - a couple of them against current UFC Welterweight champion Tyron "The Chosen One" Woodley. The fights have a déjà vu feel to them, and the complexities of the Hades design sound too far-fetched to register. Breslin's break-in into Hades, in the second half, doesn't perk up the engagement either.

The set-up is entirely predicative. The narrative feels disjointed and confused. The flow is disrupted by frequent and tacky CGI flashes that hope to increase the degree of difficulty and make it more challenging, but it's all fictitious and contrived. This seems like a pity outing for Stallone whose legendary abilities have diminished considerably with age, rendering him a mere token presence in a movie that hopes to be riding the box office on his star status.

Watch Escape Plan 2: Hades Trailer

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