"I'm being beaten up by a guy called Rupert?"
John Carpenter's Escape From New York is seven different kinds of awesome.
Escape From L.A. is slightly less so.
While there have been some recent attempts to remake the franchise (the latest idea is beyond dumb), Carpenter used to talk about a potential third film, Escape From Earth. Apparently Luc Besson heard that title and got tired of waiting around, so he wrote and produced Lockout instead. The fact that the story is credited to "an original idea by Luc Besson" is an insult to plagiarism, as the plot can be boiled down thusly:
Escape From LA + Escape From New York X Outer Space = Lockout
I'm really not embellishing. Set in the future, the President's daughter is taken hostage when the inmates take over an orbital cryo-prison and only one man WHO'S A LOOSE CANNON can bust in to save her. Guy Pearce plays Snow, our non-cycloptic Plissken stand in. He's a little less gruff and a lot more wise-cracking, but he has a monosyllabic name that starts with "SN" so...close enough.
The set design is uninspired, the effects are serviceable at best (awful at worst), and the characters are downright uninspired. We've got one villain who confuses menace with dullness and another who's basically a cartoon, while the guys monitoring the situation from Earth are all basically paint by numbers. Peter Stormare does his Stormariest but isn't really given anything worthy of his talents. The great Lennie James is similarly wasted as a skinnier version of Al Powell from Die Hard, another movie that Lockout borrows from liberally, (But then again who hasn't cribbed Die Hard at this point?) while Maggie Grace slightly classes up a role that, on paper, alternates between flat and annoying. The only real winner here is Guy Pearce, who looks more alive in a movie than I've seen him in years. He lands so many great one liners in the first fifteen minutes that I was willing to stick with him for the next seventy five. That may have been a miscalculation on my part.
In the end, Lockout isn't really bad so much as it is disappointing. The beginning is genuinely entertaining, yet it somehow pulls off the miracle of getting less fun when it goes into space. The only thing that somewhat differentiates this from Carpenter's movies is a subplot about Snow's backstory and a government cover-up that slowly goes nowhere. If Lockout felt like an homage, a tribute to a bygone era, that would be one thing. Instead it just comes across like Besson wanted to remake Snake Plissken but couldn't get the rights, so he changed the title and the main character's name by three letters and called it a night. Oh well.
We'll always have New York.
Live-tweet rantings follow below:
Got about 15 minutes into LOCKOUT when I realized that I should be livetweeting. Don't want to miss another golden opportunity like IRON SKY
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
So far you've missed a dodgy CG chase with a one-wheeled futuristic motorcycle, super scumbag Peter Stormare, and Demolition Man in space
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Oh yeah, and Guy Pearce BEING TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME!
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Maggie Grace has the dumbest Secret Service detail alive.His name is Hawk.He's the only black guy so far, so of course he dies first.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
The first prisoner to escape, (courtesy of an inexplicable fireball) seems to me a Scotsman with a speech impediment.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
19 minutes and change for our first Wilhelm Scream.I expect at least three more before this movie is out.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
So far this movie's biggest crime is wasting the incredible Lennie James. When is that guy gonna find a project worthy of his talents?
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
The space station exteriors are pretty decent, all things considered.At least as good IRON SKY, for whatever that's worth...
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
It's telling of the intended audience that, despite switching between the same three places, they subtitle the location every scene change.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Lennie James is turning into the Sgt. Al Powell of this movie.Somebody get that man some Twinkies!
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Somehow it took a full 40 minutes for Guy Pearce to find an air duct to crawl through.Can we find a way for him to lose his shoes?
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Brief pause for a meaningless Zero G fight sequence...
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Now we know why Guy Pearce was so useless in PROMETHEUS.He used up all his awesome in this movie, which nobody saw.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
This music score is about as subtle as chainsaw to the face.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
For a while, Guy Pearce was scoring one great line after another.Now he's doing his best to make crappy lines passable.It's working.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Pearce's prisoner buddy is suffering from dementia and a bad Woody Allen impression.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
I think the Mir space station just crashed into the prison apropos of nothing...
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
In the future all food comes in Capri Sun form!
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Maggie Grace is being a total dick to Guy Pearce for no reason. Then again he did hack off her hair and douse her in old coffee & shitwater.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
It's a real shame that Maggie Grace ended up with Dudley Moore's hair for most of this movie
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Maggie Grace wouldn't get in the escape pod so she could save all the hostages.Two minutes later, they killed all the hostages.OH WELL!
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Villain and his crazyass brother are a mix of the Troy bros from FACE/OFF and the Gecko bros of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.But more boring.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
I'm pretty sure that the president in this movie is played by a piece of balsa wood.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
We're coming up on climax and Guy Pearce has been missing for like 10 minutes...
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Aaaand he's back.I feel like Pearce's body count in this movie is far too low.Snake Plissken would've killed 70% of the prisoners by now
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Apparently this space prison was in VERY low Earth orbit, because they jumped out the airlock and immediately fell through space...
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Guy Pearce just parachuted through space without a helmet BECAUSE FUCK YOUR OXYGEN!
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Too bad the mystery of the briefcase is totally uninteresting.The mirror thing is inconsequential, the answer was obvious.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
I would like to see more movies about Pearce's Snow character, but where else do you send him after starting in space?LOCKOUT IN THE HOOD!
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
That movie would have sucked HARD if not for Guy Pearce's unbridled badassitude.I want to see more of THAT guy in theaters.
— Daley Screening (@DaleyScreening) April 23, 2013
Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm gonna go find me some Plissken...
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Title: Lockout
Director: James Mather, Stephen St. Leger
Starring: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun
Year Of Release: 2012
Viewing Method: Netflix Instant (TV)
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