Lockout

After The Cabin in the Woods, this was probably the movie I was most excited about seeing in April. The trailers reminded me of the cheesy sci-fi/action movies of the mid-90s and with any luck to would either be so bad that it was actually good or it would just be good on it own accord. Guy Pearce also happens to be one of my personal favorites and I was looking forward to seeing him in his first real action movie role.

Lockout tells the story of Snow (Guy Pearce), an ex-CIA operative, who is framed for a crime he did not commit. He is blackmailed into helping the government try and save the daughter of the President of the United States (Maggie Grace), who is being held captive in an outer space prison. The prisoners have escaped from their cryogenic sleep and have taken the station hostage and Snow is the only person who can save the President’s daughter and the day as well.

This goes to Guy Pearce. He definitely transformed himself physically to play this role and it showed on screen because he looked like someone who could actually be this badass soldier. He does the best he can with a pretty weak script and he has you rooting for a character comprised of witty one liners. Hopefully this movie leads him to getting parts in action movies that have actual coherent scripts. The action in the movie is a lot better than I thought it would be. Given the inexperience of the leads in action movies, I thought the action was going to be terrible. It actually turned out to be decent. The inclusion of Lennie James was also welcome, because he is generally underused in the roles he gets. His character brings the “good cop” aspect to the movie and he is the side Snow agrees to work with over the course of the movie. Definitely thought this was the best thing that he has acted in since he was in the pilot episode of The Walking Dead. The acting ability for Maggie Grace is just not there. Every line of dialogue seems forced and she doesn't really convey a ton of emotion with her expressions. I will say that she is very nice to look at but that wears off after a few minutes and then you go back to immediately not giving a shit about her character and her “humanitarian” mission to the space prison.

Space prison? I truly can’t believe that this setting seemed like a good idea to anyone involved in the making of this movie. Also at this point I’m starting to believe that Luc Besson doesn’t really look at the scripts for the movies he is producing. The man hasn’t been involved in producing a good movie since the original Transporter, and the quality of that movie is even up for debate. The sheer amount of action movie clichés in this movie is staggering. The CGI in the opening scene of the movie is also pretty horrific. Looks like it was made by a guy trying to make a cutscene for a Playstation 2 game, thankfully it gets better as the movie goes on.

A very mediocre action movie from a below average producer who wasted a lot of his potential. Guy Pearce is the only saving grace of this movie with his awesome delivery of cheesy one liners and his budding potential as an action star. 4/10