Lockout is a movie based on a idea by “The Fifth Element” Director Luc Besson. The plot is this ex government agent Snow (Guy Pearce) has to rescue the American presidents daughter Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace) when she is held hostage in a maximum security prison. The difference being this prison is up in space.
I has originally intended to avoid this movie as it frankly looked like crap however when I heard Luc Bessons name was attached to this project I decided to give it a chance.
What is good about this movie is very little I like that the movie is very European sure it has some Americans actors and a guy from Australia staring in it, but from the looks of it it was all done with European money and talent. Which makes a nice change to the all-American funded projects.
And it does have some good acting from the villains Alex ( Vincent Regan ) and Hydell (Joseph Gilgun) . And. It was certainly a surprise to see just how nasty Joseph Gilgun could be compared to his slightly confused, rude rouge like character in the TV show “Misfits”.
Whilst this movie is entertaining it is ultimately dross. Whilst not the worst movie I have seen this year it is very badly put together and written. For example by the end of the movie their is a plot thread unresolved about the president, as well as the company that ran the prison. All of which are left annoyingly unanswered.
Another thing that majorly annoyed me was possibly the worst use of bad science. This is due to two of the characters leaping of the prison in spacesuits, and not only land on earth unharmed, but also the fact that they survived burning up on reentry. In reality they would be mere cinders blowing in the breeze not landing unharmed with not even the slightest side effect. Also the fact it took them less time to travel from space and land on earth, than it does for Will Smith to travel a far shorter distance, when he jumps of a skyscraper for the new “Men In Black 3″ trailer. That really did annoy me but not half as much as the main character Snow, his personality seemed to consist of annoying wise cracks and chauvinist sexist rhetoric. His character is so flimsy we are as the audience meant to think he is a bit maverick because he smokes cigarettes, which apparently no one does in the future. However it turns out to be added as a plot device just for a bit at the end of the movie, which does not get resolved anyway so the movie makers shot themselves in the foot twice with this plot device.
Their is also a great flaw in the relationship of Snow and Emilie and that is at the end of the movie they are in love. “Awwww how nice” some people may think. Well love is nice if it’s a rom com or at the very least if their is chemistry between characters as well as a nice build up to the romance. In this movie it just happens like it was somehow hastily written into the plot in the last 2 minutes.
Basically this movie is a very good example of something I read last week which was that the women in any movie are nearly portrayed as the male characters reward. This movie really does emphasize this point a great deal. Yes admittedly Snow saves the life of Emilie but in the real world doctors, firemen, policemen all save people’s life without sleeping with the person whose life they might have saved without expecting sex in return.
The romance in this movie is basically not needed, plus it does send out rather the wrong message which is act like a chauvinist, slap and punch a women around a bit and abuse her and that women is yours as she will find you ultimately irresistible. Think you will agree this is not the right message to send out.
Another poor example of a relationship within this movie was between Alex and Hydell. They were meant to be brothers yet we never even got a good look into their backstory. Basically they might as well had not been related a it was another pointless pot device that did not add anything to the movie.
When it comes to the special effects well their pretty much standard to most films that use CGI. That is until it comes to the bike chase on earth and then the effects become like some poorly rendered Playstation 2 game play. I was really gob smacked just how bad the bike chase effects was.
I really do think this movie has tried to copy the John Carpenter movie “Escape from New York” it has so many similarities but in each and every case their all more inferior than “Escape from New York”
Whilst this movie is entertaining in the fact I was not bored to tears. It is a movie that is best put into the direct to DVD bargain bin next to copies of “The Adventures of Pluto Nash”. The acting on the whole is terrible, the script is badly thought out and ultimately like space this movie has no atmosphere. The only thing that makes it worth seeing is the performance of Joseph Gilgun
I give this movie a 3 out of 10
