NOOOOvember 2013: Lockout

We’ve already had several fantastic posts for NOOOOvember 2013 (all of which you can view in the Archives), but now the wonderful Miss Table9Mutant over at Cinema Parrot Disco has decided to join the fun and vent about one of her biggest film disappointments, Lockout! I was curious about this film, but now…eh. I think Table9Mutant has convinced me to stay away. Read on, oh disappointed friends!

 

Contributed by Cinema Parrot Disco

Lockout (2012)

Directed by James Mather & Stephen St. Leger

Starring:
Guy Pearce
Maggie Grace
Vincent Regan
Joseph Gilgun
Lennie James
Peter Stormare

Running time: 95 minutes

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)

Lockout follows Snow (Pearce), a man framed for a crime he did not commit, who is offered his freedom in exchange for rescuing the President’s daughter Emilie (Grace) from the orbital prison MS One, which has been overtaken by its inmates, led by Alex (Regan) and the psychotic Hydell (Gilgun).

My Opinion:

Okay, so I thought this was directed by Luc Besson. Apparently Besson just co-wrote the screenplay with those two guys I listed as directors up there. Therefore, I suppose it didn’t help that the whole time I was watching Lockout I thought it had been directed by the guy who did Leon! Now, I’m not one of those people (guys) who salivates all over Leon. It was a good film and all but I’ve never understood JUST what it is that makes dudes (like my hubby) love it so much. Maybe I should re-watch it… It was good, though, and the hubby also goes on & on about how great Nikita is (I never saw it) and I really enjoyed The Fifth Element even though it’s far from perfect. What I’m saying is this: I expected a hell of a lot more from Lockout based on the Besson name being attached to it. It didn’t look like some Oscar-worthy flick but it looked “fun” in the trailer – I thought I’d at least be getting a more simple sort of Fifth Element thing. Pah! Watching Lockout was the least fun I’ve had watching a movie this year.

First of all, I totally lost the plot while watching this. I’ve just had to read the whole story on Wikipedia to refresh my memory and I can see it wasn’t really my fault – the “plot” is stupid & pointless. Guy Pearce is framed but by who? And why? For no good reason, that’s why. So he can go to a cool prison in space. And the president’s daughter is onboard the prison ship. Because… of course she is – the framed guy has to rescue someone. Basically, I think this is one of those movies where they went “let’s make a movie about a prison floating in space where all the prisoners are kept in stasis but then some shit goes down and they’re all unfrozen (or whatever you call it) and then things go mental and a girl needs saving. Plot? Who cares! We’ll make some crap up later. People just want a prison riot in space!”. Ugh. Stupid.

Next we have the characters. Argh!!! They’re even worse than the so called “plot”! Maggie Grace – how many times does this girl need to be freaking rescued in movies?! Seriously! And the “baddies”… Sooo cliche! And there are so damn MANY. The main one, psychotic guy, (Joseph Gilgun) was the worst. It was almost painful to watch. I’m not saying it’s his fault as I’m pretty sure it’s the godawful script. I liked him fine in another movie he’s been in (that’ll be my “recovery movie” below). No. Wait. He wasn’t the worst… Unfortunately, Guy Pearce’s character was the worst. He should have been like Bruce Willis in Die Hard. Or… Nicolas Cage in Con Air! That’s more like it. “Good guy in prison who doesn’t deserve to be in prison saves the day”. But, instead of being likeable in the slightest or at least having some sort of charisma, he’s just a bland prick. Again, I’m not blaming Pearce here – I think this script is probably to blame. And at one point he punches Maggie Grace in the face – Can’t remember why but I think it had something to do with disguising her in order to save her or some crap like that. Anyway, he got far too much pleasure out of it and did it with no warning & that bit actually really pissed the hubby off (how sweet!). But, yeah – hitting a woman isn’t going to make many people warm to a character.

So, anyway – SPOILERS here: It ends. He saves the girl. There’s some combination to some locker with some briefcase with the secret that’s a part of that whole “framing” plot that I didn’t care about. But it wasn’t actually in the briefcase. Never mind – who cares. The girl now seems to like the prick that didn’t want to save her in the first place. And all I wanted was to finish this movie but I had to rewind the last five minutes FIVE TIMES because the hubby kept falling asleep and it was really pissing me off that I had to keep going back! And the hubby yells “She better not kiss him now after he hit her!”. Well, she doesn’t but they’re clearly going to end up together. THE END.

My Rating: 4/10

Recovery Movies:

I’m not going to go with the obvious one & say Leon – most people who like that sort of thing will have seen that already. I’m going to pick two: If you want to see the badly scripted villain from this in a worthy film instead, watch This Is England where Joseph Gilgun plays a (nice) skinhead in their original form when they just liked cool music & weren’t anything like Edward Norton in American History X. Great film! But if you just want some braindead fun that actually IS fun, which I think is what Lockout was aiming for but didn’t achieve, watch Con Air.

 

Many thanks to Table9Mutant adding another awesome review to this series. Long live the disappointments! Long live NOOOOvember!