Could this new job be too good to be true (MultiAd December 2012, and
yes it was). Downtime and access to Blogspot. A chance to be prolific
again. Better invest in a mirror to make sure the boss doesn't catch
me.
It was an interesting week to say the least. New wheels, off the phones
for the first time in three years, officially and indisputably an
uncle. Enough has happened to almost forget about my shortcomings as an
adult. Unfortunately my taste for cinema and drama kept me relative
grounded. Great film, but wrong time to see Jason Reitman's "Young
Adult." So to bounce back, I watched some ill-regarded space-themed
pictures last night.
Receiving unfair assessments by the masses (so these flicks are just
like me), I watched Disney's "Treasure Planet" and the Luc Besson
produced "Lockout." The prior may receive too much heat, but probably
the correct amount of attention (is it me, but traditional animated
Disney has not looked vivid since "The Lion King?"). Playing around with
my phone was more prevalent than during the latter. This is probably
only because the Guy Pearce flick was just louder (almost redundant to
say when you think back to "Priscilla").
Ex-CIA operative now full-time wise ass, Snow has been framed for
murdering an old friend and is destined to serve a 30 year sentence in
stasis on the new orbiting American, super max prison, MS One. He
cannot change the destination, but after the president's daughter is
stranded on the station after her humanitarian mission results in a
prison uprising, he can receive at the very least a reduced sentence
with this rescue mission. If all goes well for him, he may be able to
learn where the evidence that will clear his name is located. All he
has to do is outwit 500 prisoners (mostly cockney for some odd reason)
and tolerate the new incarnation of Erica Eleniak circa "Under Siege,"
to save the day.
"Lockout" lacks in about everything to be a great action flick, but
Snow's sense of humor and the premise make this a great template for
aspiring hacks to base their B and/or Syfy movies on. The audience
shouldn't be asked to work on making a movie worthwhile, but after you
put down a buck twenty, forgetting to enter your $0.50 off from Red Box
code, you should be willing to do what it takes if saving the cash is
not in the realm of possibility.
That's previous paragraph was a great conclusion on this rent, but like the film, it lacks.
The biggest lacking element is the lack of a dynamic hero.
Schwarzenegger at least got to be the caring father in "Commando" before
he wipes out an entire island single highhandedly. Snow is virtually
fearless, so seeing him win out is not overly surprising. What kills
the film as an action flick is that his constant, yet witty, complaining
is what would happen is there wasn't a McLean for Bruce Willis to save
(that may have been the weak point of "Die Hard with a Vengeance").
When your protagonist encourages you just to laugh along with the movie,
he may as well be one of Mike Nelson's robot friends.
I have a Tom Servo tattoo, so it works for me, but I'm not the masses (sadly).
The laughter allows you to feel like the runtime is appropriate, but
when it starts rapping itself up, you start to question whether there
was enough action. There are a few good fight scenes, but the digital
effects are a little too heavy so you may miss out on them. There is
also a lot of implied gore, but once we establish this is not a James
Bond film, why is it only implied. We are not going to take this
feature seriously, so why not get ridiculous?
"Lockout" is fun, but you have to want it to be fun. This is mainstream
for the Troma fan, so to quote Luc Besson's most recent classic, "Good
luck (with an Armenian accent of course)."
No comments:
Post a Comment