Retro: Lockout

LOCKOUT

For every Inception, there are about ten Lockouts

2012: Open Road Films

2012, Sci-Fi/Action, Rated PG-13

Distributed by Open Road Films

          The genre of science fiction in film has seen some particularly stunning entries in the last few years. Through technology and innovative uses of digital effects we have seen exhilarating films such as Avatar, Inception, and District 9 blaze into theaters recently. Science fiction will,however, always attract those B-movie directors and writers who see sci-fi as ridiculous, thus allowing them to make ridiculous movies in the genre. Science fiction should be compelling, intelligent, and awe-inspiring, yet films like Lockout reduce it to explosions, hollow characters, and stupid dialogue.

          For every brilliant Inception, there are numerous sci-fi films like Lockout that are just plain bad. Examples include Aeon Flux, Ultraviolet, Repo Men and almost all the Resident Evil movies. These films tent to skirt on intelligent dialogue or interesting story and just blow things up. Lockout does this, although a few inspirational moments save it from being unwatchable, not to mention an excellent lead actor (Guy Pearce), delivering a good performance in a bad movie. Pearce plays CIA agent Snow who, instead of going to prison, is offered a very delicate and top-secret mission to save himself from bondage. High above the Earth, a high-tech,maximum-security prison orbits our planet and houses thousands of criminals sleeping through their sentences in stasis. The president's daughter goes to the prison to interview one inmate about stasis and how it negatively affects the brain, causing hallucinations and insanity. All Hell breaks loose when the inmate breaks loose and the prisoners take over the space prison. The president's daughter is trapped and Snow is sent in to save her.

          Although the president's daughter thing is cliche and has been done a million times, this plot honestly could yield a terrific film. Especially when we consider the fact that the film was co-written by Luc Besson, director of the sci-fi classic The Fifth Element, along with The Professional and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. His writing didn't help the plot. It's pretty stale and cliche. The only thing that sets it apart from other films like it is the setting: an orbiting space prison. Still, this unique setting is not fleshed out and feels boring. The movie starts out chaotic and uninteresting so the viewer may become bored right off the bat. The prisoners who take over could have been so disturbingly creepy and interesting but they just aren't. There are a few moments of inspired insanity from those actors portraying the inmates, but they are subdued by a dumb plot and bad dialogue. The film tries to get tragic and multi-layered by introducing two inmates who are brothers who have a slight power struggle but that also felt cliche and irrelevant to the story. This film, I'm realizing now, should have been an R-rated experience. The gritty setting and relentless inmates have to be somewhat tame because of the PG-13 rating, and this diminishes the danger they are meant to represent.

          Guy Pearce turns in the best performance in the picture. It isn't amazing, but that's because the dialogue and script are so weak. I've seen/heard much worse from some much worse sci-fi films, but that's no excuse to be lazy with writing a sci-fi film with potential like Lockout. Snow is relentlessly mean to Emilie, the president's daughter (played by Maggie Grace), because she is privileged and he doesn't want to be on the mission anyway. They had a few great characterizing moments together, but they were bogged down by just as many stupid moments. Some of the action in this picture is top-notch, while some was just daft. There is a motorcycle chase scene in the beginning that looks so incredibly fake but was displayed with a consistent visual style that was nice because of its undeniably original look. Every space scene tickled my fancy because I adore sci-fi, and they did space travel nicely here: better than I would have expected.

          There are a few moments of truly original sci-fi at work but overall, this is a daft picture. It brings barely anything new to the sci-fi genre and the story needs work. I liked the ending very much and it sort of saves the film from being terrible. All in all I would say rent this if you need some pulp nonsense to fill your time. The visuals are cool and interesting, the action is adequate, but the story and most of the dialogue suffer greatly. It's a shame because the film had so much promise. It delivers somewhat, but ultimately falls short.

          Side note: If you like Guy Pearce, you should rent it. If you like science fiction, you should rent it. If you've ever played Dead Space you should difinitely rent it. This film is for geeks only.