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#637 - Lockout
Stephen St. Leger and James Mather, 2012
A roguish convict is sent to infiltrate a maximum-security prison located in space in order to rescue the President's daughter.
At this point, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that there isn't going to be another original Escape From... movie. If the past decade or two of his career is any indication, it's obvious that John Carpenter doesn't really give a damn about the idea (especially when Escape From L.A. seems explicitly designed to sabotage the possibility of a third film). Unsurprisingly, other individuals would jump at the possibility to make their own versions that would have the proverbial serial numbers filed off. Despite the opening credits citing that Lockout is "based on an original idea by Luc Besson", there's no fooling me. I wouldn't have bothered with this film if I didn't already think that it would be Escape From New York in space, so the idea that Besson would either use or even require this credit feels especially patronising to an audience. It really is a very similar plot, with a smart-mouthed convict (Guy Pearce) being coerced into infiltrating a space station dedicated to housing the most dangerous criminals in existence (who have naturally broken out of their containment units). His mission is to rescue the President's daughter (Maggie Grace), who is visiting the station as part of a humanitarian mission. As Carpenter's films have shown, that's more than enough of a set-up, and by the signs of this film's incredibly brief length, it's not an overly necessary one.
Unfortunately, the execution results in Lockout becoming a largely forgettable mess. Pearce plays an anti-hero whose capability borders on the divine even as he fights in search of a self-interested goal involving a locked briefcase and wrongful arrest (which does make him somewhat sympathetic but still feels like a fundamentally empty sub-plot), while Grace gets little more to do than play the damsel-in-distress role with the occasional moment of contribution thrown in for good measure. Attempts to stack the cast with recognisable character actors don't pan out too well; Peter Stormare fills the Lee Van Cleef role as Pearce's duplicitous handler while Joe Gilgun fills the Isaac Hayes role as the insanely violent villain who is only kept under control by his more cool-headed but no less dangerous brother (Vincent Regan). The slick space-station visuals are pretty sterile and only serve to make much of the film's action extremely difficult to remember with its generic mix of gun-play, hand-to-hand brutality, and space-faring action. Aside from Pearce getting in a decent amount of scenery-chewing as the sardonic anti-hero, there's virtually nothing to recommend about Lockout. In very much the same way that Besson's Lucy proved an aggressively poor substitute for an official Black Widow movie, Lockout is aggravating for not being able to provide a particularly watchable Escape From New York clone. At this point, I'd welcome a straight remake of Carpenter's film - it could hardly be worse than its imitators.
Stephen St. Leger and James Mather, 2012
A roguish convict is sent to infiltrate a maximum-security prison located in space in order to rescue the President's daughter.
At this point, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that there isn't going to be another original Escape From... movie. If the past decade or two of his career is any indication, it's obvious that John Carpenter doesn't really give a damn about the idea (especially when Escape From L.A. seems explicitly designed to sabotage the possibility of a third film). Unsurprisingly, other individuals would jump at the possibility to make their own versions that would have the proverbial serial numbers filed off. Despite the opening credits citing that Lockout is "based on an original idea by Luc Besson", there's no fooling me. I wouldn't have bothered with this film if I didn't already think that it would be Escape From New York in space, so the idea that Besson would either use or even require this credit feels especially patronising to an audience. It really is a very similar plot, with a smart-mouthed convict (Guy Pearce) being coerced into infiltrating a space station dedicated to housing the most dangerous criminals in existence (who have naturally broken out of their containment units). His mission is to rescue the President's daughter (Maggie Grace), who is visiting the station as part of a humanitarian mission. As Carpenter's films have shown, that's more than enough of a set-up, and by the signs of this film's incredibly brief length, it's not an overly necessary one.
Unfortunately, the execution results in Lockout becoming a largely forgettable mess. Pearce plays an anti-hero whose capability borders on the divine even as he fights in search of a self-interested goal involving a locked briefcase and wrongful arrest (which does make him somewhat sympathetic but still feels like a fundamentally empty sub-plot), while Grace gets little more to do than play the damsel-in-distress role with the occasional moment of contribution thrown in for good measure. Attempts to stack the cast with recognisable character actors don't pan out too well; Peter Stormare fills the Lee Van Cleef role as Pearce's duplicitous handler while Joe Gilgun fills the Isaac Hayes role as the insanely violent villain who is only kept under control by his more cool-headed but no less dangerous brother (Vincent Regan). The slick space-station visuals are pretty sterile and only serve to make much of the film's action extremely difficult to remember with its generic mix of gun-play, hand-to-hand brutality, and space-faring action. Aside from Pearce getting in a decent amount of scenery-chewing as the sardonic anti-hero, there's virtually nothing to recommend about Lockout. In very much the same way that Besson's Lucy proved an aggressively poor substitute for an official Black Widow movie, Lockout is aggravating for not being able to provide a particularly watchable Escape From New York clone. At this point, I'd welcome a straight remake of Carpenter's film - it could hardly be worse than its imitators.