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)."
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