Review of Escape Plan (2013) by Robert H — 02 Apr 2014

While not every element of this high-tech prison movie clicks, Stallone and Schwarzenegger make for a good cinematic team and save the movie from falling into treacherous b-movie territory. The story is pretty simple: Stallone plays a guy who breaks out of prison for a living to test their security.

However, on his latest job, he's set up and left to rot. He ends up joining forces with Schwarzenegger, and the two of them attempt to break out. These stars are the primary reason to see this film because most of the supporting cast just isn't given too much to do, nor are a lot of the bit parts particularly well acted or have compelling characters.

Stallone and Schwarzenegger's characters aren't terribly well written either, but just enough detail is given and both of them bring some charisma to their roles. The also play off of one another quite well.

The surprise gift in the cast, however, is Jim Caviezel as a sadistic warden. He plays his part with a certain calm and poise, which could be unsettling at times considering some of the violence he perpetrates on the inmates under his charge.

In fact, a lot of the violence wasn't particularly fun to watch (not that violence should necessarily be fun to watch, though). Some of the negatives I can point out are a rather weak script that has a lot of implausibilities and narrative contrivances.

There were a few twists, but nothing that a discerning moviegoer couldn't tell ahead of time. Out of the cast, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson stood out as probably the worst of them all. He can't act, and I don't know why he keeps getting roles, especially here as a tech wizard.

There was also some bad CGI explosions which looked out of place. Overall, this is an ok piece of "escape"-ist entertainment (see what I did there?). Turn your brain off and you should have a good time.