YMMV / Escape Room: Tournament of Champions

• Ass Pull: Amanda surviving the first film is a blatant, although not entirely unwelcome, retcon, with the way it happening only adding to the unbelievability.
• Complete Monster: In the "Extended Cut", Claire is the true Puzzle-Master, designing the titular escape rooms for the Minos organization ever since she was imprisoned by her father Henry. Hundreds of victims from numerous walks of lives are lured into these Death Courses and made to fight for their lives for the amusement of shadowy elites. Even beating the rooms fairly is no guarantee of survival, as Minos frequently has winners killed immediately afterwards or forces them into new games. Having been a psychopath since she was a little girl, Claire murdered her own mother in a Sauna of Death to prevent her from getting Claire professional help. Manipulating a Minos security guard to care for her and convincing Zoey Davis, a survivor of one of the previous games, to help her escape from her prison, Claire callously sacrifices her supposed savior before killing her own father, intending to usurp Henry's position as the head of Minos and surpass him.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • Some fans are convinced that Rachel and/or Brianna survive the acid rain, especially since Rachel's body has already endured a lot and she falls on top of Brianna and may have shielded her. This is mainly due to the two only being seen from a distance once the acid rain starts pouring harder and Amanda turning up alive after her apparent death.
  • Some people think Nate survives being pulled under the quicksand. The fact that Ben turns up alive after also being submerged in quicksand also helps.
  • The possibility that Danny and/or Michael from the first film could potentially have been revived from apparent "death" is also speculated about.
• Improved By The Recut: The movie went through significant rewrites and recuts before release. Eventually, the original version was released as an "Extended Cut", and was met with significantly more praise for revealing more about the origins of Minos and having more effective plot twists compared to the Theatrical Cut's borderline Ass Pull ones.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Like they would actually kill off Ben, who was one of the first film's two main survivors.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: While suffering from issues in its own right, by all accounts the film is an improvement on the original, featuring a far more likable cast and interesting puzzles, and on the whole taking everything that worked from the first movie and just doubling down on it. This is even more true for the Extended Cut, which retains content and characters missing from the theatrical release such as Henry and Claire, and gives the story an alternate third act that leads to a more satisfying ending.
• That One Puzzle: The fourth room is infamous since while it's not too bad of a puzzle, it's the only room that allows just one winner to continue rather than everyone to proceed. It's the only room that has two victims, with Rachel and Brianna simultaneously dying due to the acid rain.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Rachel. She starts out as hostile towards Zoey and distrustful of her, snapping how she overheard Ben say he was only there because of Zoey. However, she quickly warms up to her after she gets the group out of the bank room and proves her capability. After they escape the beach room together through a Secret Path, they start cooperating. Said cooperation only lasts as long as it takes them to get to the next puzzle, where Rachel is killed by acid rain.
• The Woobie: Arguably everyone considering they all survived a deadly escape room game beforehand, but especially Theo since he's missing his wife's birthday again and has a breakdown because of it. He's also the first to die, and the cast doesn't even get to know his name.

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