Sunday, August 19, 2012

LOCKOUT (2012)

A secret agent dude is set up and accused of killing another agent and stealing Top Secret information. His punishment: 30 years of sleepy time in a space station prison, MS One, where everybody is put in a cryogenically frozen sleep. But then, right as he's being prepped to to be transported to jail, the President's daughter, who was on a humanitarian mission to MS One, is kidnapped during a riot. Now the only chance of saving her is sending in this half-sleepy dude to kick a bunch of ass, crack a bunch of surprisingly humorous jokes and get her to an unmarked escape pod.

I enjoyed LOCKOUT.  A lot of No Fun Club members will probably complain that LOCKOUT borrows heavily from the whole ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK story idea, but that's fine with me cause EFNY was a fucking snoozefest. But whatever, Guy Pearce was really good, the chemistry between him and the President's daughter was fun to watch (I especially enjoyed the scene where he was doctoring her leg), there was a lot of CG but outside of the motorcycle chase scene it all looked pretty good, the pace was quick, the space station was cool. The biggest complaint is the violence wasn't violent enough. When you think of prison you think of it as the extreme in violence and ungentlemanly behavior, but outside of murdering and talking at an outside voice level while inside these guys weren't very threatening.

As far as B-level sci-fi/action flicks go LOCKOUT is fairly entertaining and you could definitely do worse...SPLIT SECOND I'm thinking about you! If you enjoy cheesy action movies, I say check it out.