"Told you we expanded too quickly”, says Hush (50 Cent) to Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone). Hush is Breslin’s best friend and tech genius, and he has a few dialogues to say here and there. However, this particular brief bit of conversation comes after an excruciatingly long and extremely unengaging opening sequence NOT featuring Breslin.

Breslin, to those who may have watched the first Escape Plan, worked as a security specialist who broke in and out of maximum security facilities like private jails, which are a norm in the U.S. That film had Breslin framed by a crafty villainous colleague, and featured Arnold Schwarzenegger in a well-written supporting role.

This second part doesn’t feature Schwarzenegger, and for the most part neither does it have Stallone on-screen. The opening action sequence is set in a hostage situation at a Serbian country – which is against the very gist of Escape Plan’s basic idea. Breslin’s men are now somehow expert men of action who take down rogue mercenaries. The main person on his new workforce is Luke Walken (Jessie Metcalf, hardly recognizable in a beard) and Shu Ren (Huang Xiaoming) – also the leads of this movie.

At the end of the first sequence the group loses one hostage, and Breslin fires one of his juniors for his rash decisions. This particular scene plays out like any pedestrian conversational bit from any CSI show, and cements the fact that director Steven C. Miller’s aspirations – and his cinematography – are hardly above routinely made, cost-conscious television production. (Miller is a regular director of yesteryear stars Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage and now Stallone).

What transpires next is a lame, irking, stiff story centered around Shu Ren who is put into an unescapable facility called Hades, and in the last half of the film shoves in Breslin to actually come in andsave the day.

Stallone looks bored; hisexpressions matchmost viewers contorted faces.

Hades is an A.I. controlled facility that functions as a death match arena, that is, more or less, a medium sized studio lot (or just a storage shed) with a few LED lights scattered at entries and exits.

The word cheap will pop-up and fix itself on our minds as soon as the film opens. And chances are, that notion will not change even in Escape Plan 3 – which spins out straight from the last scene.

Oh, and lest I forget, that film (and to an extent this one) stars Dave Bautista as well.