Giant Freakin Robot

Lockout
(On Blu-Ray & DVD Tuesday)

Let’s be honest right up front: Lockout is not a great movie. It is, however, an entertaining guilty pleasure if you’re in the mood for a bit of sci-fi action that doesn’t remotely take itself seriously. Based on an idea from Luc Besson, who also co-wrote the screenplay, Lockout stars Guy Pearce as sardonic badass Snow, wrongly convicted of espionage and offered a pardon if he can infiltrate an orbiting maximum security prison and rescue the President’s daughter, now held captive after a convict-lead takeover of the station. Sound familiar? Yep, it’s pretty much the plot of Escape from New York. And in a world where outright remakes and reboots are the norm, I have to give Lockout credit for at least relocating the action to a location that is slightly less nonsensical. The main attraction here is to watch Pearce chewing the scenery and Lost‘s Maggie Grace playing a more capable distressed damsel than she did in Taken. Lockout won’t be finding its way into many people’s collections, but if you don’t mind your SF with a generous helping of cheese, it’s a fun way to kill a lazy afternoon.

Lockout begins with Guy Pearce being punched in the face. He’s playing an operative named Snow and he’s unfazed by the blood dripping down his face. He’s rewarded for each of his witty retorts with another punch, but he keeps right on quipping, keeps right on taking those punches. Lockout is that kind of action movie.

With a genius performance Guy Pearce creates one of the most memorable action heroes since John McClane, unfortunately he’s wasted on a mediocre prison break movie that just happens to be set in outer space. This could have been the next Escape from New York, Snow is everything you’d want in a modern day Snake Plissken, but for most of its running time Lockout as a movie never musters up the energy necessary to match its dynamic lead character.

It doesn’t matter, see it anyway.

In the new movie Lockout Guy Pearce will play a badass tasked with infiltrating an orbiting space prison to rescue the daughter of a political figure from the clutches of rioting prisoners. It should be kind of like Escape from New York in space, but I’m not sure how much of that you’ll really see here.

We have five full minutes from Lockout for you. See Pearce battling his way through obstacles to reach Shannon from Lost right here…

Let me start by saying that I think Lockout will probably be a lot of fun to watch and I’m pretty psyched for it. Guy Pearce rarely misses the mark and with Maggie Grace by his side at least we nerds will have something to look at. However, this new trailer seems like it’s trying its best to get you to hate it.

Housing nearly every cliche you could hope to think of, Lockout promises to be high-flying outer space mayhem following the popcorn blockbuster formula. Check out the trailer below and see if you can count the tropes.