After more than a week without any new Hollywood movies in Indonesian theaters, suddenly yesterday one movie came out and premiered in Cinema 21 chain. It was a sequel to the 2013 hit movie which I quite enjoyed last time. So I was definitely intrigued to see this one. It played in quite a number of cinemas and coincidentally also played in the nearest theater from my home. Well let us get on with the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone - Rambo series, Rocky series etc) and his team that consisted of among others Hush the hacker (Rapper 50 Cent), Abigail (Jaime King - Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Barely Lethal etc) and Luke (Jesse Metcalfe - John Tucker Must Die, Desperate Housewives TV series etc) were famous for breaking out of seemingly high secured prisons. They often received various "assignments" or job to test the prison's security or to break people out of jail.
When Breslin's protege Shu (Huang Xiaoming - Hollywood Adventures, The Return of Condor Heroes 2006 TV series etc) was captured and placed inside a very sophisticated jail, Breslin had to use all his experience and expertise to help him out. He also enlisted the help from his acquaintance Trent DeRosa (Dave Bautista - Blade Runner 2049, The Warriors Gate etc) for this mission.
Meanwhile, Shu was captured together with his cousin Yusheng (Chen Tang) and Kimbral (Wes Chatham - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, The Expanse TV series etc). They all tried to escape by themselves, especially since the prison's warden who called himself the Zookeeper (Titus Welliver - Bosch TV series etc) was very tough on all the prisoners, including making regular fights between inmates.
So could Shu and all escape from this especially difficult prison? Or they would really require the help from Breslin? And why was he captured in the first place? Find them all in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Hmmm, this movie was disappointing. I had high hopes when I noticed this was the sequel from the 2013 movie with Stallone and Schwarzenegger as lead roles. That film had an aura of smart, full of twists and surprises, and the escape plan was pretty sophisticated. It actually reminded me of Prison Break TV series season 1 & 3. But alas, this sequel was way below my expectation. First of all, the film felt like a lower end of B class movie, especially with the very bad special effects (the explosion effects were the worst, as it was done very poorly. You could notice this in the explosion scene at the early part of the movie). I have no objection with B movie if it was at least done professionally, but this one did not feel like it.
Then the plot, especially the early part of the movie did not have the simplicity its predecessor had. Yes ultimately there was a prison escape plot, but the prison's supposedly sophistication felt too weird and even quite laughable (you would know what I mean if you notice the prison doctor). Only from the middle when Stallone's character was more involved, the film felt a little bit better. But I really do not get the purpose of having Bautista's character as he was not really useful, unless he was added to make the 3rd movie more interesting or to utilize his quite well known name. (Yes, there would be a 3rd movie which at this point of time felt too much). There was 1 interesting twist in the middle, but if you have seen many movies, you would have been able to guess it anyway.
The characters from the original movie here were not given too much role either. In fact, this one felt like the lead role was Huang Xiaoming. I actually do not have objection for him to become lead role, as he had been such in many Chinese movies. In fact, the only thing that I could say was interesting in here was his martial arts skill which felt exceptionally good and the speed could probably match Donnie Yen's. And his English was also a lot better compared to his Hollywood Adventures movie. I think it's not really fair when he actually filled most of the screen time, but his name was not even in the movie poster. By the way, in case you are wondering, there was no end credit scene to this movie.
Overall, it was not a good experience watching this movie. It's really a pity to have this kind of sequel when the original was pretty entertaining and exciting. Probably the blame should be put on the director Steven C. Miller whose credits were mostly hated by critics movies such as trio of bad Bruce Willis movies: Marauders, Extraction & First Kill. I don't have personal qualm with him, but if his track records were not that good, I am unclear why he still got to direct movies. Anyway, with this kind of quality, I am very doubtful I would want to watch the 3rd movie. Unless probably through free online streaming.
So if you have a choice to see other movies in theaters, I would recommend you see them rather than this one.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2 out of 5 stars
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