ESCAPE PLAN 2-HADES: THE BEST LAID PLANS…

There is a marketplace for movies that places them straight to disc. If they’re lucky they get a short release in theaters, more often than not in major metropolitan cities that will provide the theater owner with enough ticket buyers to make it worth their while. These movies aren’t necessarily made to go straight to disc but they end up that way. Budget cuts, fading star power for the central actor and sometimes to be used as tax write offs, these films can still provide plenty of entertainment, just not enough that they deserve a wide theatrical release. ESCAPE PLAN 2: HADES is one of those films.

If you forgot about the first ESCAPE PLAN released in 2013 that film starred Sylvester Stallone as Ray Breslin, the co-owner of a company that tests the reliability of newfangled prisons being constructed, who is betrayed by the firm’s co-owner and left to rot in a new prison. He was able to escape with the help of two loyal workers at the company and the assistance of fellow prisoner Emil Rottmayer who was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. That movie had enough residual star power in both leads to garner a decent take at the box office. Not quite this time around.

The new film has Breslin as the sole owner of the company now and their business plan now includes rescuing hostages. When the film opens a plan goes wrong due to a member of the team, Kimbral (Wes Chatham), deviating from the plan and a hostage dying because of it. Returning from the mission Breslin fires Kimbral. Team leader Shu Ren (Huang Xiaoming) feels responsible and Breslin gives him some time off to get himself together.

A year later Shu is protecting his cousin Yusheng (Chen Tang), a hi-tech genius about to display a new product, when the two are captured and taken prisoner in a new facility known as Hades. With little information as to the layout and who is behind it all, Shu tries to learn as much as he can in a prison that pits inmate against inmate if daily battles to seek rewards or punishments.

On the outside Breslin becomes aware of what’s happened and tries to find Shu and his cousin. Along with Hush (Curtis Jackson) and Abigail (Jaime King replacing Amy Ryan) they try and find their way through a computer trail of money to find the location of the prison. At the same time he approaches an old colleague named DeRosa (Dave Bautista) for assistance as well.

Inside the prison Shu recognizes Kimbral among the prisoners. Later another member of his team, Luke (Jesse Metcalf) who has been working with Breslin to find him on the outside, is captured and placed in Hades as well. The three are now trying to work together to find a link in the system from the inside. If you don’t guess where this is heading I won’t spoil it for you.

Eventually the big guy, Breslin, has to make his way inside the prison as well. With him on hand and his team working from the outside the odds of escaping increase. But a few items may prevent that from happening. Now, beaten nearly every day and weakened by their time in captivity, the team must work together once again if they are to survive.

Let me say up front there are few surprises in this film. Even one of the major turning points I saw coming down the line 10 minutes into the movie and most others will as well. But that doesn’t matter. This is a popcorn film, one of those movies you pop into the machine just to have some mind numbing action flick to watch without concern about plot holes or acting ability.

Speaking of acting for the most part the casts here does an admirable job. But character development is at a minimum here with the exception of Shu and that’s not incredibly deep. Instead the movie focuses on action and offers plenty of it between the hand to hand combat sequences and gunplay near the end. But both Stallone and Bautista are wasted here. For being the box office draws of the film Stallone’s part is more limited than one would expect and Bautista, perhaps known more for being a WWE star and as part of the Guardians of the Galaxy, feels rather one note here. He can and has done better.

In the end the movie is entertaining enough for a night’s rental but my guess is only die-hard Stallone fans will be adding this movie to their collection. The combination of stars from around the globe tells me this was intended to play as well if not better in foreign markets than here in the U.S. That’s okay but it will make fans of Stallone wonder what he’s doing making movies like this when he can do better. My guess is a paycheck or that he thought the end result would be better. For me it left me longing for past films but still enjoying it just enough to recommend it for action fans not looking for the best there is out there.

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