The most striking difference about “No Escape” and more modern action films is how Campbell and his team make full use of the sets they designed. Without access to CGI and teams of animators, Campbell relied on more practical effects, which meant he would reconfigure the same dirty, unimaginative set several times in order to maximize the producers’ investment. The two island bases in “No Escape” recall Steven Spielberg’s notion of Neverland in “Hook,” but much more violent. There are primitive traps throughout the island, and each death is met with a gruesome close-up, an overwrought one-liner, or both. Although the action is never quite thrilling, there is something to be said about Campbell’s reliance on extras and stunt men. The broad, old-fashioned canvas of hundreds of real moving bodies still has an appeal, which is partially why a recent spectacle like “Mad Max: Fury Road” captures the imagination while CGI-heavy fare often does not. Modern action directors can let their imaginations run wild, so there are fewer inventions through necessity.

The dated production values may have some novelty, but the stupidity of the premise nearly renders “No Escape” unwatchable. There is never an adequate reason why the Warden wants to keep the hardened prisoners on an island. How is their survival profitable? To what end does it serve? A simple throwaway line about human experiments or whatever would suffice, yet Robbins and the other island “inmates” are left to their own devices, and indeed have more self-determination than most any other prisoners on Earth. There is a scene midway through the film where Robbins stands on a beach and gazes into the sunset, aching for escape from his picaresque island hell. I could not help but think of “The Shawshank Redemption,” another film about prison life, that ends with a similar image, only it represents absolute freedom. The idiocy does not end there: the Warden decides to solve the island squabbling by paying a personal visit there, despite the fact that several armed warplanes are stationed nearby. Indeed, “No Escape” is the sole screenwriting credit for Michael Gaylin, and that’s because his stadium-sized plot holes betray the movie’s title.

After an ending that lands like a bad “Twilight Zone” episode, a feeling of genuine relief accompanies the end credits. “No Escape” is an exhausting movie, one that would be borderline fun if it treated the audience with any intelligence. In the subsequent discussion, I asked Ramin why he doesn’t show “No Escape” for one of his movie nights, and he said, “It is way, way too bad for that.” Even for a guy who delights in the low-effort thrills of adequate action filmmaking, “No Escape” is not worthy of a social event that’s based on mockery, not appreciation. If anything, this experience should be a lesson to those who are curious about many old movies: if a distant memory and a crappy DVD is all we have of an old movie, there is usually a good reason why. The August 26th release date of 2015’s “No Escape” means it may suffer the same slow, inglorious death of the 1994 edition, yet the newfound ease of online viewing comes with a benefit we sometimes take for granted. Nowadays it’s much simpler to dismiss mediocrity outright, instead of merely forgetting it.