BEFORE: Well, a lot of my links this month have been twofold: Oscar Grillo AND Bruce Willis were in two movies together, and I watched those back-to-back, then Bruce Willis AND Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson were in two movies together, so same. Now I've got 50 Cent AND Dave Bautista in two movies together, and I think a number of other actors carry over too. But since I've got more Bautista coming up - he's going to get me to the end of January - I just need to focus on those two actors for the moment.
THE PLOT: After security expert Ray Breslin is hired to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Hong Kong tech mogul from a formidable Latvian prison, Breslin's girlfriend is also captured.
AFTER: Well, "Escape Plan 2" was such a disaster that it forced the franchise to go back to the first film in search of some dangling plot thread that they could weave into a new tale. They landed on Breslin's former business partner, who turned against him - and I think they explained how Hush took care of him after that, but maybe we didn't SEE it until now. Perhaps there was a scene that explained it but was cut from the first movie, so it appears here to remind us. Hey, any chance to see Vincent D'Onofrio again, I'll take it, even if it's just archive footage. (I've already tried to update the IMDB, since he's not listed as appearing here. It's not really a "spoiler", exactly, the scene is a flashback so there's no harm in adding his presence to the credits.)
So there's the jump-off point, after tonight's film reminds us that Breslin basically authorized Hush to kill his old partner rather brutally (Death by shipping container? Is he just going to float around on a big cargo ship until he starves, after the ship gets stuck in some canal?) we eventually figure out that the big bad villain here is Lester Clark Jr., who went into his father's line of work of building escape-proof prisons, and he wants revenge against Breslin. He also kidnaps the daughter of a Chinese tech CEO, to get either ransom money or access to the secret tech (this is an EFO Films venture, so it's probably cell-phone software that can take over the world, or an ultimate hacking device that will do the same). But Lester Clark Jr. really can't do two things at once, like why did he kidnap Breslin's girlfriend, and not Breslin himself? He's got to know that Breslin's going to break into the secret Latvian prison to save her, right? That's kind of his thing, after all.
It's not like I was expecting great drama here, of course not, that's isn't "Nomadland" or "The Farewell", but still I'm forced to conclude that standards within the action-movie genre have fallen off quite dramatically in the last few years. It took six years to make a sequel to "Escape Plan", but only one more year to follow up "Escape Plan 2" with what is essentially "Escape Plan 3"? I guess this makes sense when you realize that it only took about two days, max, to write this screenplay. But for a film franchise that is supposedly based around high-tech prisons and how to break out of them, it feels like a real let-down to set the third film in an old-school Latvian prison (with no tech at all, really) and have the hero team break IN instead of OUT.
Breslin makes the decision to retire at the end of the break-in and break-out, and I think that's a wise one. I wonder if Stallone would ever come to that same conclusion. According to his IMDB data, he was 73 when this film was released - it's probably time to stop making action movies. I'm reminded, however, that one of the franchises on my list of films I've never seen, and perhaps it's a glaring omission, is the "Rambo" films. Never seen one of them, I suppose I should do something about that at some point. Even though I've tackled the "Twilight" series, the "Scream" films and even the "Scooby-Doo" films, certain franchises remain unwatched, like all the "Transformers" films, the Friday the 13th series, the "Halloween" films and the "Chucky" films - there may be others. Oh yeah, all the "Fast & Furious" movies, too, haven't seen any.
Also starring Sylvester Stallone, Jaime King, Lydia Hull, Tyler Jon Olson, Shea Buckner (all carrying over from "Escape Plan 2"), Max Zhang, Harry Shum Jr. (last seen in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny"), Devon Sawa, Malese Jow, Russell Wong, Daniel Bernhardt (last seen in "Birds of Prey"), Jeff Chase (last seen in "Freelancers"), Rob de Groot (last seen in "Mortdecai"), Holland Herzfeld, Boyang Yang, Sherri Robertson, Rich Miller, Sergio Rizzuto (The Pardoner! last seen in "Hard Kill"), Tony Demil, Heidi Lewandowski, Danni Wang, Stephen Oyoung, with a cameo from Jesse Pruett (last seen in tending bar in "Freelancers") and archive footage of Vincent D'Onofrio (last seen in "Fire With Fire")
RATING: 3 out of 10 incendiary rounds
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