Escape Room + Tournament of Champions
Ok, I know I keep just making reviews of whatever movie I watched recently, but at least I’m writing something! (But seriously, YouTube free movies are just the best sometimes.)
Anyway, I just watched Escape Room (it was free on YouTube a week ago), and it was AMAZING. Based on the reviews, I thought the movie would be just okay, nothing too spectacular, but boy were they wrong. I mean, I can see where people were coming from for the first half of the movie, but then the story keeps getting better and better… and you get to the PLOT TWISTS. That’s right, twists PLURAL. These aren’t just any random plot twists, either, they are so perfectly timed and impactful that my mouth was literally wide open in excitement for the entire last part of the movie. Like, for a while, the movie is kind-of predictable and just moving along, but by the end you don’t know WHAT to expect…and there’s THE CLIFFHANGER!!!
Yes yes yes I’m watching the second movie ASAP I need to know what happens to these people AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
2 days later…
So, I just got done watching Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (on DVD), but apparently I have to watch it again…but not? It turns out there’s the DVD release (aka the “theatrical release”), but there’s also an “extended cut” version of the movie that’s completely different (the name is slightly misleading). I’m only a few minutes into the extended cut right now, and it’s incredible what’s changed.
— Big Spoiler Alert —
In the theatrical release, the opening scene after the recap shows Zoey talking to her therapist about the events of the previous movie, and how she wants to travel to New York City to learn more about Minos. Zoey is debating whether she should face her fear of flying and take a plane, or just drive. At the end of the discussion, the therapist asks what it would take for Zoey to get on a plane. She responds by saying that it would take the knowledge that Minos was defeated and that the people behind it were rightfully punished. Although the therapist is encouraging, Zoey ultimately decides to take the drive.
In the extended cut, this opening scene is completely replaced to create an entirely different exposition. This time, the backstory of Sonya, her husband Henry, and their daughter Claire is portrayed, showing that Henry has been involved in designing escape rooms for several years. After Sonya threatens to divorce Henry and take Claire with her, she retreats to the sauna, which turns into an escape room. Unfortunately, the rising temperatures of the sauna prevent her from making it out in time, causing her to die. What I find most interesting is that earlier in the scene, Claire’s childhood room is shown, and dozens of items are present that become important throughout the escape rooms later in the movie.
After the backstory, the cliffhanger from the end of the first movie is recapped, this time revealing Henry to be the guy in charge. Cut to Zoey and Ben already in the airport, just about to board the flight. While they are walking down the jet bridge, Zoey ends up having traumatizing flashbacks and decides they should drive instead. As this happens, a subplot involving Henry and Claire is introduced, showing that he is locking her up and making her design a room for Zoey, but she is resistant and shows empathy for her.
After that, the movies are the same, with Zoey and Ben driving to New York and starting the escape room. Everyone passes though the first four rooms (train car, bank, beach, and New York) exactly the same, comprising most of the movie. Right after the last room is completed, the endings are completely different.
In the theatrical release, one more room is required to be completed after the New York room, being a child’s bedroom. Zoey finds blocks spelling out “Sonya”, and combined with earlier details she realizes that the rooms tell her story. Seemingly out of nowhere, Amanda returns from the dead (having fallen in a pit in the first movie), and explains that her fall was broken by Minos. She justifies this by saying that since nobody actually saw her die, it didn’t happen, which I really don’t think is a great plot point. If not seeing someone die means they are still alive, then what’s the point in “killing” them? Who else is still alive? Because of this, it’s also revealed that Ben (who “died” in quicksand earlier in the movie) is actually still alive, but will be drowned in front of Zoey unless she can finish the room. Anyway, the craziest part about this ending is that Amanda reveals that Minos forced her to design the rooms and that she is Sonya’s mother, making it clear that the rooms tell their story. Finally, once Zoey escapes, she is able to call the authorities fast enough that Minos didn’t have time to clean up their operation. She is assured that the people in charge of Minos will be rightfully taken care of, which gives her the courage to take a flight home. The movie ends with Zoey spotting her therapist on the plane, but when she goes to talk to her, the therapist pretends like she has never seen Zoey before. An ominous voice comes in on the intercom, and Zoey realizes that the therapist, the final escape, and the authorities were all part of Minos’ master plans to finally get her on a plane, and that now she is in their clutches.
In the extended cut, Zoey finishes the New York room and falls into a small holding cell, where a Minos employee (and friend of Claire) rescues her and takes her to the cell holding Claire. Claire explains how there isn’t much time, and that her cell is actually a puzzle that she can’t solve by herself. She needs Zoey to help her escape, and that why she designed the rooms for her. Meanwhile, Ben (who was also caught in a similar holding cell) is revealed to be stuck in one last room, one resembling the sauna puzzle from the start of the movie. Zoey helps Claire escape, and together they save Ben. Along the way, they encounter Henry, who’s furious that Claire was able to escape. They manage to trap him in Claire’s old room, and Zoey and Ben are able to escape and call the authorities. The movie ends revealing that Claire was the true mastermind all along, with a flashback showing how when she was younger she tried to be incrementally naughtier and naughtier to see if her parents loved her the way she was. The final moments of Sonya are shown again, this time revealing that Claire was right at the door watching her mother die with a grin on her face. To finish, Claire uses her old room against her dad, triggering the killing mechanism and leaving him to die, showing how power hungry she is, willing to do anything to remain on top.
What I find most interesting about the two versions is that the relationship that Sonya has with the rooms is completely different. In the theatrical release, Sonya is the child that Amanda inserted into the rooms, while in the extended cut Sonya is the mother that Claire inserted into the rooms, completely changing the underlying meaning.
Also, details from the theatrical are still present in the extended cut, such as a flashback to Ben in the car when he “died”, as well as children’s blocks and oxygen masks appearing in the credits sequence. The full credits of the extended cut still include Amanda and the therapist (even though they are no longer present in this version), and add in Claire and Henry. For some reason, Tanya van Graan is left uncredited for playing Sonya.
Overall, I think I prefer the extended cut better, as the audience gets to have a peek behind the walls of the game into the inner workings of Minos. The story is a little more straightforward in the theatrical release, however, and the cliffhanger at the end is certainly more suspenseful, which is probably why it’s the main version they decided to go with. Either way leaves plenty of room for another sequel, but since Tournament of Champions didn’t do nearly as well as the original Escape Room, odds are quite low that another one will be made.