2013's Escape Plan was one of those fun action movies you catch on cable and before you know it you're hooked. Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – though probably too old to still be doing action movies – made for a great team, as they tried to break out of a high-tech prison nicknamed "The Tomb."
Five years later Stallone's character Ray Breslin has his own security firm, including some guys from his team the first go-round (including Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson). But when one of his crew (Huang Xiaoming, Ip Man 2) gets taken and held captive in an even more secure prison, you know what Ray's gonna do. Assisted by his old buddy Trent (Dave Bautista), he stages an even bigger jail break.
Co-starring Jesse Metcalfe (Desperate Housewives) and Jaime King (Sin City), Escape Plan 2: Hades, hits DVD, Blu-ray, digital and on-demand on Friday, June 29.
About Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about.
I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague.
Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work.
In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo.
I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.
