@chucksterino3112

9 months ago

I feel like the second ending gives the movie some much needed... well I wouldn't call it depth, but context. The problem with these movies is that they are neither fish nor fowl. It feels like they wanted to make a Saw kind of movie but they were forced to make it PG-13. And without the gore and viscera of a Final Destination or the aforementioned Saw, you simply cannot afford weak writing. I enjoyed the second one way more than the first, because at least it was really suspenseful. The "rain" room was a really good idea in my opinion. The "beach" one not so much. The theatrical ending was predictable and felt like a cheap knockoff of almost every Final Destination ending (and from now on we're entering spoiler territory for anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet, so if you do not want to have the ending spoiled or the movie in general you should stop reading right about now) where the big plot twist is just that "it's not really over". The extended cut at least gives you some reason why the story shouldn't be over. It works as a nice transition into a third movie, that could give us a big showdown between Zoey and the puzzle master. But for it to be a good transition, it needs a glimpse behind the curtain. We need to see some of the inner workings of Minos, otherwise it stays this almost cartoonish, faceless evil organization that only exists to churn out more and more deadly escape rooms. It feels a bit like the evil claw guy from Inspector Gadget. The first one felt weak, but maybe could have worked as the entry point of an at least pretty good thrillogy. The one thing a good villain needs is a good motive. And so far, the only motive I have seen in the theatrical release was money. That's cheap. Have Zoey and the Puzzle Master go into a battle of wits. And have the god damn balls to kill off Ben or Amanda for good. It annoys me how much potential has been wasted by corporate decision-making. They only care about making it easy, making it simple and tame enough so that as many people as possible can watch it. And all that does is sanding off all the edges of an otherwise interesting idea. Sorry about this long rant. TL;DR: Extended cut is better. Could've been an above average movie series with a bit more context. Ended up being a forgettable mess that still works better than the first one.

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