Sylvester Stallone's Escape Plan (2013) was a straight-to-video b-movie where Sly's 'prison consultant' was double-crossed and sent to a facility he needed to, well, escape from. With a cameo from Arnie during his post-Governor period, at best the movie was considered a guilty pleasure for the elderly comeback duo. More of the same here right? A resounding "no" actually.
Whatever that low budget film had going for it is lost here in an unbelievably bad (and unintentionally hilarious) mish mash of dull action, bad acting and sci-fi! Yes, sci-fi. The plot sees his colleague Shu Ren (Huang Xiaoming) end up in a prison that is more Tron: Legacy and Running Man than it is a modern prison.
Neon lights, smoky corridors and laser doors (!) replace any sense of even a semblance of reality and by the mid-way mark I half thought the ending would reveal them to be in space. The sets are small, badly lit and cheap looking and the lighting is abysmal.
It's strange Stallone can arrange the production of a film as good as Creed and something as dreadful as this movie. The prison's nickname is "the zoo" – a metaphor of caged animals so simple it's something a child would come up with – and ex-wrestler Dave Bautista shows up but brings none of his great Guardians or Blade Runner 2049 charm.
Additionally, he and Stallone are barely in it – the two stars are support at best – and the ridiculousness continues with prison guards who look like Daft Punk. With the inclusion of lightning bolts that flow through prisoners like the three storms from Big Trouble in Little China and a robot doctor (seriously??!!) it's perhaps one of the funniest films of the year. But no one's laughing WITH it I can assure you.
"It's bad to be back", Sly says in an action one-liner which means nothing – yet summing up this film to perfection.