Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018)
Escape Plan 2: Hades continues the high-tech prison-escape action of the first film, once again following security expert Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone), who leads a team specializing in breaking out of the world’s most secure facilities. This time, however, Ray is pushed to his limits when one of his top operatives is captured and imprisoned inside a new, terrifying, fully automated black-site known as HADES.
The story begins with Breslin’s expanding business: he now trains elite operatives who test facility weaknesses around the world. His team includes Shu Ren (Huang Xiaoming), a disciplined martial artist and rising star in the company, and Jaspar Kimbral (Wes Chatham), a brilliant but unstable technician whose extreme methods make him a growing concern. After a failed mission where Kimbral’s decisions lead to a teammate’s death, Ray fires him, creating resentment that becomes central to the plot.
Not long after, Shu is kidnapped while protecting his high-tech-entrepreneur cousin, Yusheng Ma. Shu wakes up inside HADES, an underground, AI-controlled super-prison unlike anything Ray has faced before. The facility constantly shifts sections, uses advanced surveillance, robotic guards, and unpredictable lighting and temperature cycles to break prisoners psychologically and physically.
Inside the prison, Shu relies on his combat skills and discipline to survive. He meets other prisoners, including a surprisingly calm inmate known as Luke (played by Dave Bautista in a supporting role outside the prison), who helps Ray investigate. Meanwhile, Shu discovers a shocking truth: Jaspar Kimbral is alive, inside the prison—and he is the mastermind running HADES. Driven by revenge and a twisted belief in “survival of the fittest,” Kimbral uses HADES as an experimental lab to test human endurance and break people for profit.
As Ray learns of Shu’s disappearance, he mobilizes his team and outside contacts to locate HADES. Ray realizes Kimbral’s involvement and understands that Shu’s imprisonment is not a mistake—it’s a trap meant to challenge Ray’s legacy and destroy his company.
While Ray and Bautista’s character, Trent DeRosa, search for the hidden location of HADES, Shu leads a revolt inside the prison. He fights through brutal rounds of automated challenges, rising heat chambers, and shifting corridors. Eventually, Shu uncovers the prison’s central AI core and coordinates a synchronized attack with other inmates.
Ray and DeRosa finally locate the facility and stage an assault from the outside while Shu attacks from the inside. Their combined effort overwhelms Kimbral’s control, causes system failures, and leads to a violent confrontation. Kimbral is defeated, and the prisoners escape before the prison collapses.
The film ends with Ray reflecting on the betrayal, the corruption behind private prisons, and the importance of loyalty within his team. Although Escape Plan 2: Hades received mixed reviews, especially compared to the original, it expands the universe with futuristic technology, martial arts-driven action, and a deeper look at Ray Breslin’s leadership and trust in his operatives.
