“I’m done with prisons,” drawls Sylvester Stallone’s security expert Ray Breslin and watching Escape Plan 3 it’s hard to disagree. Third time round for Stallone’s 4th string franchise (Rocky, Rambo, The Expendables are all higher up the cinematic food chain) the emphasis here is less on the problem solving of previous outings and more a dull cycle through grim punch-ups, bad acting and blatant attempts to woo the Chinese market — The Grandmaster’s Jin Zhang and Crazy Rich Asians’ Harry Shum Jr have prominent if, like everyone else, underwritten roles in the melee.
Rather than a prison break, this time round it’s a break in. The reheated old guff that passes for a plot sees Breslin and his cohorts (Bautista, Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson, Jaime King) looking to extract Daya (Malese Jow), the daughter of a Hong Kong tech giant (Russell Wong) from a giant Latvian penitentiary ominously known as Devil’s Landing. Daya and Breslin’s partner Abby (Jaime King) are being held hostage by a goon (Devon Sawa) with a grudge against Breslin that stretches back to events in the first film (don’t worry we didn’t remember either). Previous Escape Plans had a sci-fi tinge. This one is rooted firmly in bargain bin action licks circa 1992 and has little invention or charm to up the ante. It also plays that DTV trick of promising big name stars on the poster and failing to deliver — Dave Bautista appears fitfully and Stallone only a little more.
Director John Herzfeld has a background in non fiction and the film bizarrely opens with a tone poem about modern America, almost a documentary on the Trumpian rust belt heartland. After that it’s the expected slog through dull exposition, decent if repetitive martial arts fights (in aircraft hangers, office blocks plus a good bit with a crowbar), women-in-peril tropes, endless creeping through dimly-lit sewers, bad speechifying and in Breslin, the most uncharismatic character in Stallone’s back catalogue. And that includes Joseph “Joe” Bornowski in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.