Escape Plan: The Extractors - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Escape Plan: The Extractors



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
As a huge fan of the 80s and 90s I really enjoyed Escape Plan more than I should have. It was a goofy action movie that did what all fans from the 80s and 90s have wanted for countless years. Pair up Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger together in the same movie. Sure, they were together in The Expendables II, but that was an ensemble cast more than anything, while Escape Plan was kind of them doing a veritable duet. It was fun, schlocky, and had plenty of action despite both of them being past their prime and in their “second wind”, so to speak. While it was a fun movie to many (and a huge guilty pleasure for yours truly) no one was calling out for a sequel to it, much less DTV sequels without Arnold involved. However, Stallone’s 2nd wind has been generally failing him lately, and the once box office magician is back to doing DTV films and the like. For some reason he thought it might be a good idea to continue up Escape Plan with not one, but TWO sequels. Each one getting progressively worse than the other.

While Escape Plan 2: Hades wasn’t a great movie by ANY stretch of the imagination, it at least followed the basic premise of the first movie. Sly’s Ray Breslin, escape artist extraordinaire, had to break into another prison so he could break out an associate. Simple, to the point, and it had Dave Bautista as one of his co-stars. This go around they’ve completely thrown out the idea of a prison break, and has Breslin acting as an Expendable type commando character, who is charged with finding one of his own after the son of his ex partner (Vincent D’Onofrio’s character from the first movie) comes back looking for revenge after what they did to his dad. Stealing the daughter of the tech mogul who BUILT all of the black site prisons from the first two movies, as well as stealing Breslin’s love interest/partner Abby (Jamie King), the son lures Breslin to a prison in Latvia where the two have to work out some unresolved issues via bullets.

Escape Plan: The Extractors is simply ridiculous. It’s just a generic DTV action movie with a few references to the first two films, as well as a few recurring characters (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is back reprising his role as “Hush”, with even less screen time than he did before. Even Dave Bautista is in the film for MAYBE 8 or 9 minutes). No longer is this a prison break movie, but (as the title says) rather a full on generic action movie where they extract their loved ones FROM a prison. As with all these generic action movies, it wouldn’t be complete without a few Chinese martial artists to kick butt and some old 90s action stars to play hulking brutes (it was nifty to see Daniel Bernhardt in a film again, even if Jin Zhang’s bodyguard character did whoop his butt pretty easily).

Acting is typical of the genre, with wooden dialog, stilted delivery and bad fight scenes that look like Paul Greengrass’s addiction to quick cuts is still alive and kicking. The acting is pretty stale, although Stallone gives it his best shot. At least he’s not visibly bored like he was in his 15 minutes of Backtrace. The thing is, he’s still got some good days in him as the new Rambo seems a return to form, and he was very solid in Creed II. It just seems to be that he needs a good director pushing him to do his best in these lower budgeted films for him to really shine. But, it is what it is, and the 2nd sequel to Escape Plan is just more of the same generic action footage with some solid Chinese actors lending their hand to the action scenes (Stallone LITERALLY has one fight scene in the whole movie).




Rating:

Rated R for violence and language




Video:

The 2.39:1 AVC encoded Blu-ray looks rather nice for the most part, with strong facial details and good clarity throughout the film, but is plagued by several issues. Naturally the typical banding found on these release are present (most notable in the opening shots and against the night sky), but the film is also overly noisy as well. There’s swarms of fine digital noise all throughout the dimly lit Latvian prison shots , as well as Breslin’s underground “lair” that he’s in. The colors are heavily tinged with a thick green look in some shots , and a heavy sepia and yellow look in others. Skin tones tend to look either green or yellow depending on the color grading, and the end scene in the plane hanger is absolutely CRAZY with the facial tones. It looks like everyone involved in that shot is painted with a heavy layer of yellow paint on their faces, like they’re part of an action clown movie or something. Overall this is a fine enough transfer, but it does have its drawbacks.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track (remember when Lionsgate would ONLY put 7.1 DTS-HD MA tracks on all their Blu-rays? Even if it was just a comedy?) is quite the stunner though, as it fills the stereotypical action role to a T. Guns sound heavy and powerful, dialog is clean and clear, and the LFE channels rumbles with the various action sounds. It’s not overly nuanced, but it’s a loud and aggressive track, and fills out the channels with a good ambiance whether that be from the front, or the rear.







Extras:

• Audio commentary with director John Herzfeld, Sylvester Stallone, Devon Sawa, and Daniel Bernhardt
• "The Making of Escape Plan: The Extractors" - featuring never-before-seen cast and crew interviews that explain what it took to make this white-knuckle film.

Final Score: ​

Yeahhhhh, even a die hard Stallone fan like myself has to draw the line somewhere, and Escape Plan: The Extractors is where I have to put that line in the sand. The film is mindless action, with no heart or soul, and only a couple of cool fights with Zhang to make things actually interesting. The franchise should have ended with the first movie, but I put up with the mediocre second film, but no mas por favor. The Blu-ray from Lionsgate is “good”, but suffers from a few video flaws and the extras are pretty underwhelming. Unless you’re a TRUE die hard Stallone fan, I’d just skip it altogether.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Curtis "50 cent" Jackson, Jamie King, Dave Bautista, Daniel Bernhardt, Jin Zhang, Devon Sawa
Directed by: John Herzfeld
Written by: John Herzfeld, Miles Chapman
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Lionsgate
Rated: R
Runtime: 88 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: July 2nd, 2019

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. I really enjoyed the first one but I will skip the 2nd and 3rd.

 

[Todd Anderson]

Yikes. This looks about as bad as Stallone's plastic surgery (?) . Pass

 

[NBPK402]

Thanks for the review... I also enjoyed the 1st one, but was disappointed in the 2nd. I will skip the newest one.