The pReview Re-viewing of..
Lockout
(CLICK THE TITLE TO VIEW TRAILER IN A SEPARATE WINDOW)
it is highly recommended to watch the trailer and THEN read the review
(warning: Contains one 90s throwback Sci-fi action movie. And cursing.)
by Jeff Finck
written 1/30/2012
Release Date: April 20, 2012
The premise: It is the future. Trust me.. I mean, I saw space and stuff in the trailer. So, there is this impenetrable prison floating around in space, right? And on this prison is the most hardcore of hardcore criminals.. like Martha Stewart times 10! Well, the U.S. President's daughter goes up for a bit of a visit and has a run in with king prisoner, who manages to start an all-out riotous prison break. The upside is that they're in space, so who gives a fuck? The downside: apparently the President or whatever wants his daughter back for some wacky reason. There is only one man they can trust to get her back. This man, unfortunately, is not Snake Plissken or John Spartan or Dr. Stanley Goodspeed. Guy Pearce (in his first of TWO space movies coming out this year.. see: Prometheus) plays an equally terribly named loose cannon called Snow.
Inside the world's most secure prison, lies the world's most secure elevator system. Inside the world's most secure prison, lies the world's most secure security system. Inside the world's most secure prison, lie the world's most deadly criminals. These criminals are locked in cryo-stasis.. but don't worry, this cannot be confused with a little known movie called Demolition Man, because this prison is located in.. dun dun dun.. SPACE!!!! And so we come to what I call the world's most complicated sense of the word "World." If the world's most secure prison is in space.. would it not then become the space's most secure prison, on lease from Earth, aka the World? I don't know.. I may just be arguing semantics here.. but then again, I have no idea what "semantics" means. Speaking of "semantics", this impenetrable floating hunk of money also has outside futuristic machine guns. Seriously.. just in case the people of Earth somehow manage to covertly, and unwelcome-ly (word?), launch a ship capable of space flight up into outer space, and then have enough control and navigation to find AND dock with this monument to taxes.
After all the sexual innuendo about the prison being remote, hard to find, impenetrable, and absolutely "fuck-worthy", one of the prisoners is being interviewed by a woman about his cryo-sleep. She gets so bold as to ask the young convict (taken straight out of BadGuys-(backwards)R-Us) if he has any hopes or dreams.. to which he appropriately responds, now that he's seen a woman after who knows how long, that he will be dreaming of her. For some reason, the man in charge of keeping the convict under control did not see that coming and gets all pissy. Defending the honor of the unnamed lady, he pulls out a gun and then somehow explodes. Chivalry is saved for all mankind! The resulting explosion leads to the inevitable release of every prisoner on the entire prison with the press of a single button. It makes sense that there's a button that does that, I mean.. just in case one wanted to cause an all-out riot and set up what will be sure to be an action packed homage to all of those "Send the Hero Into Prison To Rescue the Pretty Lady" movies.
Sure enough, we find that the pretty lady (Maggie Grace) is the President's daughter and that hero who is sent to rescue her is none other than Snow, the Canadian mythical reggae genius behind such anthemic summer songs as "Informer" and "The Plumb Song."
Wait.. wrong Snow? Oh.. Uhm.. This is embarrassing.. Oh wait! This Snow:
Guy Pearce plays Snow, the rebel without a clause.. in his contract to not be based off of about a dozen other characters in Prison Rescue Movie history. Regardless, Snow is a former government agent who had been set up and now faces dire consequences if he doesn't come through. If he DOES come through, he will be granted a full pardon for the safe return of the.. wait a minute. I just thought of something: Why the FUCK is the President of the United States' daughter interviewing prisoners on a ridiculously over priced, clearly horrendously guarded, asteroid in the middle of space that has a button that is capable of releasing every single prisoner?! Did anyone run that through the "Here is a list of all of the things that could go completely fucking fucked" Machine?! Okay.. never mind.. I have to suspend disbelief.. this is a movie after all. So, basically, Snow has to rescue the President's daughter or else.. he'll have to.. I don't know.. hang out with Nickelback or something.
And so he does: Snow flies into space, gets past the completely useful machine gun defenses, space walks to the top of the prison, free-falls INTO the prison, and then fucks everyone's mind, body, and soul with his guns and clever use of gravity. The trailer flies through some of the fight sequences with a few of the more colorful inmates (expect one attempted rape).. dwelling on a few shots of clever disguises (at one point Maggie Grace is dressed as one of the convicts.. so expect some fun sight gags here), and more gun play (expect some fun one liners that only heroes in these movies can give). And running. There will probably be a lot of running for their lives. Which I guess is better than standing for their deaths.. that would be a much shorter movie. Oh and then the last bit of the trailer shows one more wrench in the blender: The prison starts falling out of orbit and is threatening to land on the last endangered species on the planet.. probably not, but I wanted to up the stakes. But seriously, it does start falling into the atmosphere, giving the characters limited time and giving the audience even less of the edge of their seat to sit on.
I watched this trailer about 6 times in a row because I just really missed these kinds of movies: Nonsensical plotlines, ridiculous characters, fabulous one-liners, and mindless action. Seriously, I complain a lot about movies borrowing from other movies, but in this case, I think I'll make an exception. I mean, I loved Alien 3, Half Past Dead, The Rock, Escape From (insert city), Judge Dredd, AND Demolition Man. Okay.. maybe not Half Past Dead) Plus, this was apparently co-written by Luc Besson! The trailer makes this movie look well made and well executed.. and I can't wait to see it! Even if it can basically be summed up with this extremely terrible and crude draw-ring: