Escape Plan: The Extractors (Blu-ray Review)
Screen legend Sylvester Stallone kicks this explosive action tale into high gear. After security expert Ray Breslin (Stallone) is hired to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Hong Kong tech mogul from a formidable Latvian prison, Breslin’s girlfriend (Jaime King) is also captured. Now he and his team, which includes Dave Bautista and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, must pull off a deadly rescue mission to confront their sadistic foe and save the hostages before time runs out.
Film 
Ray Breslin is back in the third installment of the Escape Plan franchise entitled: Escape Plan: The Extractors. In this latest adventure Breslin and his team have to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a tech mogul (who ties in directly to what has been established in the first film) in addition to rescuing a member of their own team. Yes, you guessed right: this time…it’s personal.
Having reviewed Escape Plan 2: Hades and not necessarily hating it outright (it has an awesome animatronic robot) I wasn’t really expecting much of a quality film in this latest sequel. I’m here to say that I was wrong. The Extractors is one of the best “grindhouse” films I’ve seen this year. Stallone drafted his best friend John Herzfeld to write and direct this sequel. Hades is not acknowledged, so don’t worry about playing catch-up with that one.
Herzfeld has staged a dynamic little film filled with some insane hand-to-hand combat action. I literally cursed out loud in excitement at the conclusion of Dave Bautista’s fight, because I was not expecting that brutal hit. I do give the film props on connecting it to the first film, so I would suggest watching that film if you want a refresher.
Outside of a few shots of connective flashback tissue – Escape Plan: The Extractors is its own self-contained beast. It’s a short film, running under 90-minutes, but delivers some great action. You can clearly see that Stallone and the rest of the cast enjoyed themselves on this action-romp-fest. I did too!
Video
Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Clarity/Detail: Escape Plan: The Extractors was shot on the digital side of things and it has a nice and slick presentation for the first half. Once in the prison, things get gritty, but the quality of the show does not degrade.
Depth: There are some scenes and second-unit cinematography (like the skyline above) that really shine on the Blu-ray.
Black Levels: Black levels are deep and retain their consistency even in the largely darkened cells of the prison.
Color Reproduction: The color remains bright and bold unless it takes place under the bright yellow spotlights of the prison – once there everything is obviously washed out until folks get out of the light.
Flesh Tones: Folks looked nice and healthy throughout the film.
Noise/Artifacts: I did not notice any noise, debris, or artifacts on the Blu-ray presentation.
Audio
Audio Format(s): English DTS Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Dynamics: The Blu-ray sounds terrific and really takes advantage of the lossless sound field.
Low Frequency Extension: The rumble in the jungle (LFE) gave the whole spectacle a nice kick in the pants.
Surround Sound Presentation: There’s plenty of action going on in the background that perfectly balances out what’s going in the front. You’ll be ducking for cover as bullets whiz by your head on this one.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is clean, crisp, and clear.
Extras
Surprisingly, we get a nice helping of special features. There’s an audio commentary with the stars including Sly, but be warned, Sly only shows up for the final fight. The bulk of commentary track is writer-director John Herzfeld and actors Devon Sawa and Daniel Bernhardt. The other extra is a nice featurette with cast and crew. Stallone makes an appearance and you can tell he’s having a ball. He was completely absent from any promotional material from Hades, if you remember that release. A DVD and Digital HD copy round out the special features.
- Audio commentary with director John Herzfeld, Sylvester Stallone, Devon Sawa, and Daniel Bernhardt
- “The Making of Escape Plan: The Extractors” – featuring never-before-seen cast and crew interviews that explain what it took to make this white-knuckle film.
- DVD
- Digital HD Copy
Summary
Escape Plan: The Extractors is not going to win awards for being a great or original film. It’s neither. It’s just a whole hell lot of fun. Fans of action/martial arts/grindhouse films will have a blast. The Blu-ray has awesome audio and video specs and the special features are more than adequate for this release. Enjoy!
Escape Plan: The Extractors is available
on Blu-ray & DVD!
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