A solid action movie that launched an atrocious franchise brawls with the Netflix charts

Any moderately successful action movie is destined to either launch a money-spinning franchise, or to be cast out of multiplexes forever in favor of terrible VOD sequels. Unfortunately, the first-time clash of genre icons Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Escape Plan ended up taking the latter path.

The pair had become firm friends after spending the 1980s at loggerheads as they jostled for position at the head of the oiled-up and muscular pack, with Schwarzenegger’s cameo in The Expendables whetting appetites for what was to come in Mikael Håfström’s prison break caper. It was hardly groundbreaking, but Escape Plan was still a ton of fun.

Sadly, Arnie abandoned ship after the opener, leaving Sly to headline another two installments. For whatever reason, the Rocky and Rambo legend agreed to star in third chapter The Extractors, despite publicly admitting that he suffered through the worst experience of his long and illustrious career on sophomore outing Hades.

Either way, we can assume he enjoyed himself on the first Escape Plan, just like Netflix subscribers have been doing this week. As per FlixPatrol, the crunching bruiser that sees the two veterans engage in much figurative d*ck measuring has become one of the most-watched titles on the platform’s global watch-list, not really all that much of a surprise when you consider that mid budget runners and gunners are guaranteed to perform on-demand.

The plot is unremarkable, and the set pieces are workmanlike as opposed to edge-of-the-seat, but it doesn’t really matter when you’ve got two undisputed titans shooting the sh*t and clearly having a blast butting heads.