Escape Plan 2: Hades pit Sylvester Stallone against тιтus Welliver, and it’s somehow one of the worst movies either of them has made. Sylvester Stallone’s action movie run of the 1980s and 1990s is littered with classics, but from the 2000s onwards, things get a little bleaker.

From Stallone’s 0% recent STV actioners Armor and Alarum to the almighty disappointment of The Expendables 4, he hasn’t been on a great run in the past decade. The 2010s also gave rise to the Escape Plan movie trilogy, where Stallone’s escape expert Ray Breslin often finds himself breaking into or out of various “inescapable” prisons.

The original sold itself on the team-up of Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which was enough of a hit to score two sequels. There’s no way to sugarcoat it, though: Escape Plan is Sly’s worst action series. Only the first entry is worth seeking out, where Stallone’s role in the sequels amounts to being a glorified guest star.

Escape Plan 2: Hades Pit Sylvester Stallone Against тιтus Welliver To Shockingly Dull Effect

None of Hades’ cast escapes the sequel’s mediocrity.

Escape Plan 2: Hades sits at 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and failed to recoup its $20 million budget. On the surface, it looks like a genuine theatrical action flick, with a cast that includes Dave Bautista and Bosch himself, тιтus Welliver. The latter plays the evil warden of the underground prison that Ray and his protégé find themselves locked inside.

The gimmick with this facility is that the inmates are forced to fight one another, with figures from Ray’s past seeking vengeance by locking him inside. Sadly, the film is really a straight-to-video cheapie using its cast to hide the fact that everything else is on a тιԍнт budget.

Stallone barely has 15 minutes of screentime in Escape Plan 2, the sets and special effects are intensely chintzy and all the fights are dull. One of the biggest sins of the sequel is selling itself as a Stallone/Bautista team-up when they only share two scenes. It also completely wastes Welliver as the “Zookeeper” Faust too.

Hades‘ screenplay gives Welliver little to work with, as he’s either making clichéd evil monologues or glowering at monitors. Escape Plan 2 gives the impression that most of the cast sH๏τ their scenes independent of one another, which might account for why Welliver and Stallone don’t appear onscreen together.

тιтus Welliver’s Final Action Scene In Escape Plan 2 Is Embarrᴀssing

Clash of the тιтus

With Stallone’s Ray being offscreen for much of the film, the bulk of Escape Plan 2’s action falls to Huang Xiaoming as Rhu. He’s the one doing most of the sequel’s fights, including a showdown with Welliver’s Faust in the finale. While Welliver has a background in martial arts, the fight itself is intensely underwhelming.

Rhu and Faust face off in a narrow corridor, with the latter armed with two knives. Considering Faust is a key villain, this battle should have been one of the most exciting, but between the choppy editing and the overall impression that it was sH๏τ in 10 minutes before that day’s lunch break, it’s just a lousy sequence.

It didn’t help that, despite casting somebody with Welliver’s gravitas, Faust is a dud of an antagonist. He’s painfully one-note, and there’s no real sense of who he is or what drives him. Even in the original Escape Plan, it felt like Jim Caviezel was having fun with his villain role.

When Caviezel’s character was blown up by Ray at the end, there was a sense of accomplishment too. In contrast, the demise of Welliver’s Faust barely registers. If Escape Plan 2 had at least given Welliver a great fight scene to go out on, things could have been different.

Sylvester Stallone Called Escape Plan 2 “Beyond Awful”

Sly didn’t mince words when it came to the 2018 sequel

Stallone went right from Escape Plan 2 to a third entry, dubbed The Extractors. After posting about the third entry on his official Instagram in early 2019, the star responded to a fan comment stating they hoped the new film was better than Hades. Stallone then replied with some shocking honesty.

Myself too. Escape plan 2 was beyond awful!!!

Stallone later stated “Escape Plan 2 was truly the most horribly produced film I have ever had the misfortune to be in.” Now, Stallone has been honest about his bad movies in the past, calling out the likes of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot or Rhinestone, so his Hades‘ comments aren’t a huge surprise.

What is a surprise is that he was trashing Escape Plan 2 while he was making the third instalment. In a deleted Instagram post made by his co-star 50 Cent (via People), the rapper said, “How the f*** I’m in the worst movie Rambo made?“ before laying blame at the feet of Hades‘ producer, Randall Emmet.

Stallone Made Escape Plan 3 To Redeem The Series

The Extractors is a step up from Hades

The Extractors: Escape Plan is the third and likely final entry in the Stallone action franchise, which found Ray and his pals breaking into a remote prison to stage a rescue. The third outing was helmed by Stallone’s pal John Herzfeld, resulting in Sly looking far more engaged and having more screentime.

50 Cent, Bautista and other familiar faces return too, with The Extractors stripping back on the second film’s sci-fi trappings to be a more grounded action flick. Escape Plan 3 gets points for having more interesting characters – such as Devon Sawa’s antagonist – and better fights, including Bautista’s using explosive sH๏τgun shells to devastating effect.

It’s better paced and more atmospheric, and ends with one of Stallone’s most bruising fights. Despite Stallone starring in Escape Plan 3 to make up for Hades‘ poor quality, it’s by no means a great film either.

Its small budget is often apparent, it does nothing fresh with its “Die Hard in a Prison” concept and really, Escape Plan 3’s only real achievement is being a little better than Hades. For Stallone completionists, it’s fun in an undemanding way, but it’s certainly no Tango & Cash either.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, Instagram, People