Ah yes, the best girl in Teen Wolf.
Let me give you a quick recap of who Lydia Martin is and hat the movie Escape Room is all about.
WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!
TEEN WOLF's Lydia Martin
Is played by Holland Roden. You can stalk her Instagram like I do or binge-watch her van-life series in YouTube to get a sneak peek of who the actress is.
Lydia started off as a mean girl in Season 1 and gets a very good character development as the season goes. She is smart-- very smart and we often see her and Stiles come up with solutions to a certain problem or discovering a plot hole to the bad guy's schemes. I would love to discuss more but that would be a long discussion so let's save it for another time.
Escape Room: Tournament of Champions
Little something about part 1
This is already part 2 of the franchise. Thankfully we don't need to watch part 1 to understand part 2 because the first scene of the movie they give us a little bit of flashback how it all started and basically picking up where they left off.
The story follows Zoey Davis and Ben Miller who survived the escape room of the first movie. Zoey did not find peace after escaping and did extensive research on what happened to the other players who died within the game. Each player matched a corresponding activity that relates to their death, like how Amanda fell from the game so her body was later found in the mountains where it was said she died from climbing.
Picking up where part 1 left off
Now in part two, they are led to believe that Minos' headquarters are in New York. While tracking the building down, let's say they got tricked by chasing a junkie all the way to the subway. There are 4 other passengers with them. Things are going well when their train car separates and they later realize that they are back in the game. Zoe and Ben finds out the other passengers are actually "champions / winners" aka survivors who played the escape rooms as well.
If you guys don't know yet, Zoey and Ben's group consists of only-survivors from different events. Like Zoey and the plane crash, Ben and the car accident, etc. Meeting the other champions, they are chosen under a different category. Nathan from a group of priests, Brianna from a group of influencers and Rachel from a group who couldn't feel pain. We didn't know much about Theo though.
What Tournament of Champions is about?
As the title says, it is a tournament of champions. Which means that we get a group of survivors from different groups and will compete/work together in the new escape rooms prepared for them. You could say it's like Hunger Games' Quarter Quell and Zoey and Ben could very much be like Katniss and Peeta in a way. But instead of competing with each other for survival (like Part 1 of the franchise), the players here will work together to survive. Which is kind of nice in a survival genre.
They all know the rules. They just need to play it together and survive.
We could expect that of course, not everyone will survive the game, given that there should be thrill and deaths in each round as much as possible. This won't be much of a survival game if no one dies.
There are two versions of the film. Theatrical Cut and Extended Cut.
I've watched Extended Cut but I was able to do a bit of research and saw the differences between the two versions. Either way, it does not affect my decision on the film.
Who is Lydia Martin in Tournament of Champions?
Holland Roden plays punk-rock Rachel Ellis, one of the champions that Zoey and Ben meets in the subway. She reveals almost the end of the movie that she was born with microdeletion in one of her genes which affects sensation and causing her not to feel physical pain. After watching it 2 times now, I don't remember that she mentioned she was in a group of people who doesn't feel pain but I think it was implied in her conversation with Zoey.
Rachel is no different from our girl Lydia. She is smart and she knows what she's doing. Maybe she and Zoey did not start off in good terms but she later knew well enough to trust Zoey with her decision in the Beach room. Now I haven't fully watched the interview with Holland yet, but I think it was implied that Holland says that it felt like filming for Rachel is just like filming Lydia. I can't confirm this yet though. Just thought I'd mention it if you are interested to do some research.
Also fun fact, this isn't Holland's first escape room movie to film. Earlier than Tournament of Champions, she starred as Erin Isaacs in the film No Escape (also known as Follow Me). It's gorier for me so I didn't really want to watch it.
Should I watch Tournament of Champions?
Short version I would say; No.
And I can't exactly tell you the reason without spoiling you. Below is very spoiler-ish, read at your own risk.
Basically it just made me upset to watch the last escape room. It felt rigged from the very beginning. You guys probably wouldn't know what I am talking about in this part, but let me give you a brief explanation on this scenario.
Rachel and Brianna just got out of the phone booth to join Zoey in the taxi as safety from the acid rain, but in just a matter of a second (when they supposed have 10-20 seconds or something as break from the acid rain) the taxi and phonebooth closes at them. Why? Because Zoey was already safe and she is the one the puzzlemaker wants anyway?
We get a big reveal Ben is alive later on because he was saved by the puzzlemaker for Zoey's sake. If you are going to watch the movie FOR Lydia Martin, then it would be upsetting to see her die. It's not the death really, it's how it was rigged that they are meant to die in the first place because they have no plot armor. She and Brianna had a chance to survive and the puzzlemakers had to cheat. If Lydia died in the quicksand where it's just 'natural' and no rigs, then I would have accepted it. But killing her off because the writers gotta reserve Zoey as the only survivor with Ben in tow... yeah, you get it.
Longer version, if you want to watch the movie because it's a thriller or an escape room kind of movie or you love the puzzles, then YES go for it! But if you are there for Lydia Martin, NO don't go for it.
Now you could say I am biased about this because I am not watching the movie for Taylor Russell (Zoey), but I'm not. She's a good actress, she did a great job with Zoey and the thing is, the movie is about her. Not Holland. Not Rachel Ellis. It's about Zoey. So we can all expect that she is pretty much the catalyst of the show. Obviously Ben must be there too because he's been there since the beginning.
You have my answer. It is up to you to decide now.
Thanks for this. Lydia deserves better than what the movie did to her