LOCKOUT (2012)
a review by Evan Landon
After my review on Fortress, I wanted to follow it up with Fortress 2: Re-Entry, but I couldn't find it on VHS (which is still my favorite format. I know, shut up) and it costs like $2.99 to stream, so I picked this little gem off of Tubi instead. I cannot say it is a better movie, in the least bit, however the special effects are light years better. The advertisement breaks actually make it somewhat more watchable, in fact.
It does not matter if Guy Pearce is a great actor or a good leading man for a film because he has proven that he can be. He absolutely can if you give him a good script and good actors to work with, but when most of your actors do their lines from sound stages across continents.
What I truly find hilarious about this movie is how it says at the very beginning that it is from an original story by Luc Besson when John Carpenter sued him and his production company for €450k because it is literally the identical plot for Escape From L.A., which kind of makes you think less of the French director in more ways than one. That being said, he did also get a writing credit on this, so that is even a bigger let down than the story because this movie contains some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard. Let me run through a few of them for you:
“Don't get me wrong. It's a dream vacation. I mean, I load up. I go into space. I get inside the maximum-security nuthouse. Save the President's daughter, if she's not dead already. Get past all the psychos who've just woken up. I'm thrilled that you would think of me.”
“Are you all mouth, no trousers?”
“You're a big girl, right? Here's an apple and a gun. Don't talk to strangers, shoot them.”
I am just going to stop there before my brain turns into mush. Believe me, it is worse hearing two people who are not even on the same continent much less the same room have such enthralling conversations. If you cannot tell, it lacks all of the subtlety and charm you would usually find in a Luc Besson script. The story is as much to blame too though; there are so many plot holes that I'm surprised the actors did not fall into one and get spit out into orbit and through the screen. As far as the special effects go, they hold up just fine, despite the lack of realism or overall physics, but whatever. I don't care about that shit when everything else is noticeably terrible.
Anyways, Lockout had very little success in the worldwide market making $32 million against one of Besson's more meager $20 million budgets, but I don't think that includes the money he got sued for by one of the greatest directors of all time over the grounds of plagiarism. This is not the worst of his crimes, however, but that is a lawsuit of a completely different kind from a completely different film. You can look that one up, if you feel like it.
2 out of 5