REVIEWS: Escape Plan & Escape Plan 2: Hades

The ultimate dream of any 80s action fan was to see Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone in the same movie.  Both had their loyal fanbases, and to see the two of them rocking the same plot would have caused some sort of fanboy apocalypse.  The closest we got at the time was in Last Action Hero when Arnold was in a video store and stood beside a cardboard cutout of Stallone in Terminator 2, and claiming that he loves that guy.  The Expendables in 2010 gave us a bit more of them, and the second and third movies would provide even more.  But then in 2013 we had Escape Plan hitting theatres.  It was twenty years too late and a plot that didn't court their 'one man army' personas that they equipped in their early years.  I understand that they are older and it would be less believable, but did we really want to see them finally teaming up in a movie where all they were doing was trying to escape from prison?  Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman work that game, and the characters don't need to be muscled up hulks.

The first movie starts off with Ray Breslin (Stallone) in jail, planning to escape.  Part of his plan succeeding means that he has to get placed in solitary confinement.  He sees that happen and then works his magic, getting out of the prison through some convoluted means that kind of get explained later.  The police chase him down, and when he gives himself up it turns out this wasn't just a normal prison break.  Vincent D'Onofrio meets the prison warden and explains that Breslin is a security expert who is hired to enter prisons and assess their weaknesses by breaking out.  'Aw shucks, you got me,' seems to be the warden's attitude, for some reason forgetting that Stallone's method of getting into solitary was that he killed multiple prisoners.  That's right, he murdered people, but it is okay because he wasn't really supposed to be in jail.

Breslin then gets an offer to try out a secret black site, a prison that is off the books and is a solid pay day.  Breslin can't resist, and he is captured and brought to this intense prison.  However, when he gets there he seems to freak out at the fact that the prison walls are glass and he uses the safe word given to him to end the program within about an hour of being there.  It turns out that they don't accept the safe word, and now Breslin is really trapped and needs to work his way out.  A friendly fellow prisoner named Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger) joins forces with Breslin, and the two aim to get out.

This isn't any kind of mesmerizing plot, but it isn't incredibly bland.  Other than Breslin being allowed to murder human beings in the name of security checks and the stupid looking prison guards that for some reason have extra protection over their shoulders and biceps and nothing but a black cotton/polyester blend over their vital organs, this movie isn't insulting.  Sadly, it just isn't that interesting, the twist at the end falls flat, and a character turn is spotted within the first ten minutes.  This just isn't the film that people yearned to see Stallone and Schwarzenegger in.  Both leads are likeable enough, but there is only so little that their characters do in this film.

Fast forward five years, and we have the sequel, Escape Plan 2: Hades.  The movie starts off with a hostage situation with militant Muslims, and they are fixing to kill westerners.  The good news is that it turns out that Breslin has inserted some of his security specialists into the situation, because everyone knows you can just wander up to extremists and request being put in with a group of hostages.  Also, one of Breslin's people is embedded with the terrorists, because these are obviously the types of people that would let a caucasian American become one of them so quickly without suspicion and put him in a position of responsibility.  That opening sequence and the logic behind it will hurt your brain if you dare think about it, so lets be kind and just pretend that everything in this movie is going to make sense.  That's how were are going to get through this, you and me.  We are going to pretend that it is all logical and makes sense.

As though he were Steven Seagal, Stallone is barely in this movie.  It focuses mostly on characters that we know very little about, with actors that we know very little about.  One of them was in God's Not Dead 2, which means nothing good for this film.  Trapped in a crazy implausible prison are three of Breslin's guys, and they wade through a muddled plot as they try and work out how to escape.  For some reason one of the guys waits until over halfway through the film to point out a prisoner who knows the entire layout of the prison.  This is the kind of plot that we are dealing with, instances happening without logic, only being slotted in places where the plot needs something new to happen.

One of the nicer things about Escape Plan 2: Hades is the presence of Dave Bautista as Trent Derosa, a streetwise tough who assists Breslin.  This is someone who I was really skeptical of when it came to acting.  I wasn't really on team Bautista when he was a professional wrestler, so I was certain I wouldn't dig him in movies.  It's not like he is a man for all roles, but I do have to say that there is something interesting about his presence and performances that I rather enjoy.  The really sad thing about his acting career is that he is getting into it way too late.  He is almost fifty, and I am wishing that he worked on making this transition twenty years ago.  As it is, though, he is still huge and intimidating, and he was just not in this film nearly enough.

This is a boring movie.  While the first film wasn't embarrassing, this movie serves no purpose other than to be yet another franchise that Stallone will refuse to let go of.  There is a third Escape Plan in the works.  Stallone is going to be in the sequel to Creed (he also wrote the screenplay), there is another Expendables coming, and, for some horrible reason, there is going to be yet another Rambo.  I feel like this is getting a little embarrassing.  Stallone's refusal to let go of franchises is unfortunate, as these characters are only seeming to continue to exist to provide for work for Stallone instead of existing because there are compelling stories for them.

I suppose the short of this is that while there is nothing outrageously wrong with Escape Plan, it isn't something that's going to make you feel this was the best application of action heroes.  Escape Plan 2: Hades, however, is something that people should keep away from.  Nothing to see here.  Move along, move along.

Escape Plan rating - 2 out of 4 stars
Escape Plan 2: Hades rating - 1 out of 4 stars