Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021)

Disclaimer: This Tournament of Champions review was originally posted January 27, 2022 and was updated July 20, 2025.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is the 2021 released sequel to the 2019 horror movie titled Escape Room, both directed by Adam Robitel. Robitel is also the writer and director for The Taking of Deborah Logan, which is one of My Top 5 Found Footage Movies which can be read by clicking here. Despite directing both Escape Room films he didn’t write either and instead the screenplay of the Escape Room was written by Bragi F. Schut and Maria Melnik with the core story by Schut and Tournament of Champions, was written by Melnik again but additionally Will Honley, Daniel Tuch, and Oren Uziel are also credited.

Spoilers for Escape Room (2019) past this point

During the 1st movie story details are established culminating in the takeaway that an annual secret corporate-sponsored escape room that wealthy and powerful people bet on for entertainment. The participants face real life and death situations typically unbeknownst to them with little to no instruction or details given. By the end of the film the main character, Zoey Davis portrayed by Taylor Russell, is 1 of the 2 survivors of the Minos escape rooms that promises a chance at winning $10,000 by answering the invite. Towards the end the games master reveals themselves to Ben Miller (portrayed by Logan Miller), the other surviving character from Zoey’s escape room, and explains some of the operation that Minos is running. He reveals to Ben that the demand for more interesting participants and rooms grows each year in response to inquiries of why all the people in their escape rooms were sole survivors of accidents, although the game designer is responsible for the set up the master runs the production of the game.

Fortuneately for them Ben and Zoey kill the games master and are able to escape, rushing to get help immediately. Unfortunately for them Minos vacated the warehouse premises before any authorities showed up, leaving no traces and the property looking undisturbed by anything except squatters. The police believe that her and Ben aren’t reliable sources and as their investigation closes she sees “No Way Out” spray painted on a wall that activates her puzzle mode, being the main puzzle-solver of her escape room. She figures out that it is an anagram for a name consistently written and heard in their escape rooms, left like a taunt for her that she didn't imagine everything .

Cut to six months after the police end their investigation both survivors attempt to return to normality, meeting up to catch up with one another post-escape room. Zoey reveals however at their lunch meetup that she’s still researching Minos and looking for clues as to the whereabouts of the escape rooms. Since the escape room fake accidents have been set up and reported on to cover up the deaths of the other escape room participants, confirming a cover up since both watched those same people die in the rooms and not in car accidents and mishaps like reported. Zoey hypothesizes that Minos wanted them to loose and rigged the game against them which has now caused them to be upset and still after them for beating the game anyways. Zoey also reveals she’s deciphered the Minos logo to reveal coordinates to a secret headquarters hiding in plain site in Manhattan, New York City and asks Ben to come with her and confront them.

The cafe scene transitions to the inside of a plane in mid flight and flight attendants are rushing to solve an escape room puzzle built into the cabin keeping the doors locked while the pilots have been taken out. They are tasked with getting into the cock pit by solving the puzzle before the plane crashes so they can try to save the plane in time. It appears like the plane is about to crash into the side of a moutain just as they make it into the cockpit but it cuts out to reveal the plane isn't real, but a simulation. This simulation is being conducted by the game designer, who appears via video chat with a distorted voice and no video feed. They give feedback to the testers that it has a 4% survival rate and they plan to trap Zoey in the scenario when her and Ben go to fly to New York, revealing that Minos isn't letting Zoey go.

Escape Room: Tournament of Champs (2021) spoilers past here

Two years after the release of the first movie Tournament of Champions released and Zoey is still resolved to confront with the hope she can take them down if she gets proof of their escape room operation. Despite Ben and Zoey barely surviving their first Minos encounter they jump right back into the lion’s den when they use the coordinates from the end of the first film to attempt and track down the Minos headquarters. To include some of the key details from the first movie a montage of scenes plays at the start of the sequel which is reminiscent of a "on last week's episode" catch up at the start of a weekly show. Any time I've attempted to watch this movie I feel like I need to also rewatch the first movie before I do by the time Ben and Zoey start to make their plan to head to New York City. Zoey's therapist encourages her to get on the flight and calls out her paranoia that she's always in a Minos escape room looking for clues even in her therapist's outfit, pen, and office.

Zoey isn't able to make it onto a flight after many failed attempts so they decide to drive to NYC and on their drive have some good back and forth that re-establishes their connection. They go immediately to the coordinate when they arrive in the city to find dilapidated warehouse structures and virtually abandoned and derelict streets covered in trash and darkened by the structures. A man shouts at them from inside a tunnel and proceeds to steal Zoey’s necklace, resulting in both her and Ben chasing the assailant into a subway train station and ultimately onto a subway car. Just as they think they've got him the doors close and the train takes off, leaving both Ben and Zoey trapped until the next stop. They make a plan to get off and circle back to keep investigating the Minos property but quickly realize that won't be an option when their train car detaches from the others and takes an alternate route.

Ben and Zoey aren’t the only passengers on the rouge train car however and the others are also freaked out and investigating the unanticipated detour. Quickly they all realize they're likely in a Minos escape room and reveal they've all survived one previously but don’t have time to exchange details because the game has already begun. They must escape the now electrified metal train car before they’re electrocuted by solving riddles to play hangman using the train car ads as clues. One passenger does reveal he survived being put in a submarine and the pressure being turned up, popping his ear drums and requiring him to wear a Cochlear implant now. This character Theo, portrayed by Carlito Olivero, doesn’t survive the train car escape room however, being the one person to be electrocuted while they try to solve the hangman style puzzle to release coins that will open the car door.

The surviving participants aside from Ben and Zoey include Brianna Collier portrayed by Indya Moore, Rachel Ellis portrayed by  Holland Roden, and Nathan portrayed by Thomas Cocquere. Brianna reveals her room was all influencers and Nathan that his was all priests, even being sent the initial invite as if it was from the Catholic church. They surmise that Minos wanted to find out who’d survive with similar backgrounds like being sole survivors in the first movie. Following the first room they make their way into a 1920’s style bank with high ceilings, marble counters, and a checker tiled floor. Rachel and Brianna want to solve the escape rooms in hopes that they can survive again like they did the first go around and be free. On the opposite end Ben and Zoey don’t want to give in and fulfill the whims of the watching wealthy and Nathan lies in the middle, feeling that there’s no hope in either direction.

In the bank room they’re able to work together to solve riddles while avoiding a deadly laser grid activated by tiles on the floor. Once they’re deactivated the lasers they’re able to solve the puzzle to escape the room and travel through a tunnel to an indoor sandy beach with mannequins. Having all survived the previous room they make their way into the bizarrely bright setting next to The Salty Claw, a beach shack on the makeshift beach. The scene is calm and quiet compared to the fairly instant laser encounter in the previous room and the train car electrification in the first room. They split up to look for clues but as they do the sand beneath them turns liquid like quicksand and begins sucking up them and the beach surroundings. Rachel gets sucked down into the sand but Nathan jumps in to save her and manages to pull her out of the pit and back onto solid ground. He is sadly sucked in though and doesn’t resurface, presumably dead and buried beneath the sand.

Once Nathan is sucked down more of the beach begins to roll on the surface of the liquifying sand. Inside the beach shack they find a retro fridge that opens into a tunnel that both Rachel and Bri want to go through. Meanwhile Zoey is solving a separate puzzle entirely, which isn’t clear if it’s truly an intended alternate exit or just a different way out of the room she’s creating. Ben stays stuck trying to get Bri to come with them and ends up falling off of the ladder as he climbs the lighthouse to the exit Zoey has revealed. Images flash on the screen of their friendship as Zoey looks on in horror that Ben is gone and Bri is sucked down in The Salty Claw, having spent too long making a decision and becoming trapped there.

Zoey immediately friend zones Ben again when her and Rachel discuss after escaping, Rachel reminding her that Minos would’ve found them no matter what even if she hadn’t encouraged Ben to come. Zoey is upset she hasn’t gotten any proof in the previous rooms or clues as to Minos’ operation but Rachel confesses she can’t feel pain and that her room was full of others with similar conditions. She tells Zoey that the games they came up with for what she calls “the pain freaks” were unspeakably terrible. They hear car honking then and follow it up and out of a man hole cover in what appears to be a NYC street blocked off for construction. Excitedly they think they’ve finally made it out of the escape room labyrinth but those hopes are quickly dashed when Bri runs up to them from a different direction. This proves that either option worked for getting out of the previous room but that one made Zoey believe she’d actually beat the game again.

The makeshift street they’re on looks realistic with projections on the surrounding walls to mimic life bustling on a street. Bri informs them that when the cross walk counts down to 0 acid ran pours from above and they all get to work escaping. This room is especially difficult, the only way they survive being Rachel knowing that a certain kind of plastic can protect from acid rain and using a bottle to capture enough to bust into a locked phone booth. They’re able to solve the riddles and sustain only minor burns up until Bri and Rachel take refuge in the phone booth and Zoey in a cab as acid rain pours down.

The cab doesn’t unlock to let Zoey out and the phone booth doors automatically shut when they rush out to join her in the cab once the rain stops. They try to get in and Zoey tries to open it from the inside but no one is able to do anything but scream in anguish as a false bottom opens, dropping Zoey into a separate room as acid rain pours down over Rachel and Bri. They stand in the street holding hands, facing one another with their foreheads pressed together and Rachel tells Bri not to give them anything as what looks like smoke fills the space where their bodies had just been. Luckily not much is shown of this death by acid rain and instead the camera follows Zoey into the room she’s been dropped into which appears to be an attic converted into a child’s bedroom full of toys.

Zoey takes in her surroundings in confusion, not feeling the same certainty from the first game that she understood the meanings of the rooms in the context of the participants. She sees blocks spelling Sonya on a play mat and examines a notebook that is Sonya’s diary that reveals she’s Amanda’s daughter. Just as Zoey makes the connection that the rooms are designed for Amanda from the first movie who she’d believed to be dead drops down into the room. She’s wearing a corporate jumpsuit that looks like a test subject outfit and is on edge, encouraging Zoey to design a game for Minos just like she was forced to do. Zoey is shook she isn’t dead and Amanda reveals that if you didn’t see something happen it might not have happened in this world of escape rooms and Minos meddling.

Minos believe the best designers are those who have already survived the games and are basically recruiting Zoey through force and threat. She immediately rips up their invite to Amanda’s horror, inviting and accepting whatever punishment Minos has planned. After she does this a secondary portion of the room is revealed and it’s a tank like structure with a glass wall that Ben is trapped in. Zoey is shocked he’s alive but there’s no time for reunions because the room is filling with water and doesn’t appear to be a puzzle to solve but rather a death trap. Amanda cracks almost instantly and begs to be let out, claiming she tried her best to recruit Zoey. She tries to break the glass with objects including a shovel and Ben tells her to never let them win no matter what and she agrees to never say yes to Minos.

Just when all hope seems lost Zoey sees that there’s metal piping along a portion of the room and rips it out, pointing it at the glass wall that holds Ben trapped. Amanda tries to stop her by saying there’s no way to actually be free but Zoey makes a blow torch out of the pipe that blasts at the glass wall and lights the wooden ceiling on fire as well, saying that heat will expand the metal frame and hopefully break the glass. After a hot minute, no pun intended, the glass does break and Ben along with glass and water come crashing out into the attic. They follow the direction the water is draining out of the room and pull planks off that wall to climb out of the escape room. They quickly bust out of a warehouse that contained these rooms as an alarm sounds in the building while Minos attempts to lock down.

The trio is able to escape just in time and make their way onto the streets and to a police station. On a TV in the station coverage of police at the Minos warehouses is playing, showing they’re going down for the secret escape room operation. An agent approaches them and informs that Minos didn’t have time to wipe the place and has been caught this go around. They return Zoey’s necklace, claiming it turned up, and inform that federal colleagues will reach out to them as they build a case against Minos. Ben and Zoey embrace as they celebrate that this time everything is really over and that they will finally receive justice. As they leave they talk about finding their version of normal and Zoey requests Ben to do one more thing for her.

The scene outside the station cuts to a plane flight, presumably Ben and Zoey traveling back home. Ben says that he loves flying but Zoey is understandably on edge and begins to wonder if things were a little too easy. She starts to work out that everything lined up perfectly in the rooms for them to be able to be sitting on the plane at that moment in time. He counters that Minos couldn’t fake things to the extent they had with a full on police station of agents that are in on it. A narration comes over of her therapist at the start of the film calling her out for being paranoid and then listing possible clues that she says aren’t clues. As the clues are listed, like a pen, Zoey sees those objects on the plane, even seeing a woman who she mistakes for her therapist due to them looking and dressing similarly.

As doom settles in Zoey remembers what she said it would take to get her on a plane again during her therapy session. She explicitly said that it would take seeing the people who’d hurt her and killed her friends brought to justice and stopped from hurting anyone else. Since she believed that to be the case, news coverage and all, she felt safe enough to go on a plane again, freed of Minos. Just as the grave error clicks for her the above head vents start pumping gas into the faces of all the passengers and the games master announces the game only ends when Minos says so and thank them for flying Minos Air. This cuts to black then credits, a cliffhanger that feels like it anticipated a third movie to complete the escape rooms trilogy.

Conclusion

In my recollection I thought this movie had been so much better but going in after just watching Escape Room I felt like it mirrored it in almost every way. The first rooms have crazy intense circumstances, a literal oven in the first and an electrified tin can in the second. The 2nd and 3rd rooms are switched and in the 1st film they go into a winter cabin survival and then an upside down billiards room whereas in the 2nd they go from the fancy bank with lasers to the beach room which are similar but switched in order. Finally there’s the triage room of hospital beds then a room smushing in on itself compared to the acid rain street and child’s attic in the 2nd, displaying the limitations of the escape room concept.

I think the first movie is a really, really creative concept and I think the rooms in the 2nd movie make that come to full fruition with intricate concepts and puzzles not tailored to the active participants. This made it feel more like an escape room rather than a targeted attack like the first movie can feel when separated from the Minos aspects due to the reason they’re selected being related to their disaster survivals. I wish I could take the rooms of the 2nd and combo them with the foundational elements of the first so it doesn’t need to be rehashed in such a hasty and disjointed way. Since there’s a “last week on” montage at the start I would’ve liked more back and forth and world building for Ben and Zoey like in the first movie with some participants being shown solving the puzzle and arriving.

Ultimately not a bad set of movies that I hope a third is made so that there’s a definitive conclusion to Zoey’s battle with Minos. Going into a 3rd I’d anticipate a very similar structure and do look forward to seeing them solve the mysteries and puzzles while working together (sometimes poorly). I think Ben and Zoey have great chemistry  as partners facing off with Minos and I would like to have more of Ben’s background explored as Zoey’s has been. I’m equally interested in Ben and Zoey and wouldn’t mind more of their relationship (whatever it is) and more of him aiding in puzzle solving.