'Escape Plan 2: Hades' review: Because why not?

The awkward moment when this is a better movie than Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Some nights, it’s good to watch black-and-white films from the 1940s to try and better your understanding of cinema as any film critic should have. Other nights, watching the straight-to-DVD sequel Escape Plan 2: Hades is a pretty good option too.

The first Escape Plan was released back in 2013 and starred Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger — this being one of the very few films that they appear together in.

For what it’s worth, Escape Plan was perfectly enjoyable and forgettable. It’s a really cool concept that knows how to have fun with the idea, even though it is pretty flimsy and doesn’t have anything that’s actually all that relevant to say. Even so, “You hit like a vegetarian” is still one of the best Schwarzenegger lines to date.

Escape Plan 2: Hades comes five years later, reminding us that these movies even existed in the first place.

Maybe I’m remembering the first Escape Plan wrong, but a lot has changed in the past five years. Ray Breslin (Stallone) now has a team of jail-breakers that he’s been training himself, rather than being the only one who is thrown into these high-security facilities and then expected to find a way out.

In fact, the movie opens with this team with Stallone being nowhere to be found — which makes for a very confusing opening act for the Escape Plan 2: Hades, as we’ve never met these characters before and have no idea who we’re supposed to be rooting for. The dark lighting and shaky camera work certainly don’t help, either.

Eventually, though, we do reunite with Breslin and learn that his operation has been growing and growing, as he’s now one of the most trusted security experts in the world.

Being someone so skilled and powerful creates enemies. Enemies who just so happen to know a thing or two about prison security themselves.

One-by-one, Breslin’s team begins to go missing. They’re all being taken to an undisclosed prison known only as Hades — a place where prisoners are referred to as animals and are forced to fight each other on a regular basis. Breaking out, they’re told, is impossible

Of course, it’s not actually impossible, or else it wouldn’t be much of a movie. While Breslin is running things from his office for a large part of the movie, his right-hand man Shu (Xiaoming Huang) is the one who’s actually trapped in the building and begins conjuring a way to get out.

Oh yeah, Dave Bautista is running around and doing stuff too. He’s not exactly given a ton to do and his role during the third act feels pretty forced, but he still gets to deliver a couple of Bautista-like lines which is always fun to see.

I’m not foolish to go into Escape Plan 2: Hades and expect some kind of Oscar-worthy masterpiece. It’s not that kind of movie and I don’t want it to be that kind of movie — I just want something big, dumb and fun.

Which is pretty much exactly what I got. Throw all logic and reason out the window here and just watch Escape Plan 2: Hades for what it is, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I watched this late Sunday night when I was dead tired but the movie managed to capture my attention and keep me awake through the whole thing, which is saying something.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a sucker for heist/prison-break movies, but I still think the Escape Plan concept is a great one and I like watching their whole plan come to fruition.

Hades, to the set-designer and writers credit, also feels like an inescapable fortress that poses a real threat. I like the whole idea behind the prison and movie itself — Hades is very technology-based while Breslin likes to do things the old fashion way, which creates more conflict throughout the film.

It sounds cheesy and like it’s been done before, but Escape Plan 2: Hades is actually smart enough to realize this and play off it. More often than not, it’s technology that has the upper-hand which forces Breslin to adapt and find new ways to outsmart it.

The real head-scratcher with this movie, though, is the lack of Stallone. He was the primary force who led the first Escape Plan but here he’s not actually in the movie all that much. For the first two acts, it’s mostly just him sitting behind a desk while Huang is the one actually getting his hands dirty. It’s not until the last 25 minutes that he shows up in the prison, which seems like a pretty big missed opportunity.

Luckily, Huang can mostly carry the movie by himself. He’s not exactly the most interesting character I’ve ever seen and he’s not given any kind of arch, but watching him orchestrate a plan and fight-off bad guys was cool enough to keep me on board.

Up until the very ending, that is, which was terrible. Again, I’m not expecting anything all that great out of Escape Plan 2: Hades, but the way this movie concludes feels so out of left field. They don’t even resolve the conflict in this movie, they’re just banking on the fact that Escape Plan 3 will get a green-light so they can finish what they set-up here.

And, I mean, since this franchise has gone straight-to-DVD, they’ll probably get that third movie but I still don’t like the ending. Either way, Escape Plan 2: Hades is exactly the dumb ride you think it’s going to be. The good news is that the filmmakers realize this and don’t try to sugar-coat it into anything else — they know it’s stupid and we know it’s stupid, so we’re all just here to have a good, stupid time. While you definitely have to be in a certain mindset to appreciate that kind of movie, they at least get props for pulling that off.

Watch the trailer for Escape Plan 2: Hades here and let us know what you thought of the movie in the comments below!