Review of Lockout (2012) by Ola G — 13 Dec 2012

In 2079, CIA agent Snow (Guy Pearce) is arrested for the murder of undercover agent Frank Armstrong who had uncovered evidence of an agent selling state secrets about the space program. Secret Service director Scott Langral (Peter Stormare) threatens to have Snow incarcerated on the maximum security space penitentiary MS One where prisoners are kept in stasis for their sentence. Snow's agent friend Harry Shaw (Lennie James) tries to locate Snow's contact Mace who knows where Frank's briefcase containing the secret information is hidden. Meanwhile, Emilie Warnock, (Maggie Grace) daughter of US President Warnock, arrives at MS One to investigate claims that stasis might affect prisoners' minds, leading to psychopathy and dementia. Hydell, a prisoner, is awakened for questioning, but manages to escape. He releases all of the prisoners and starts a riot, led by his brother Alex. Emilie and others are captured. Shaw convinces Langral to send Snow to rescue Emilie rather than risk her life in a siege. Snow is initially reluctant, but agrees after Shaw tells him that Mace is on MS One, and could help Snow prove his innocence. Snow secretly infiltrates MS One. Time is ticking and Snow need to find Emilie before Alex and the rest of the inmates realises that Emilie is the daughter of US President...

Not long ago I saw "Colombiana", a poor Luc Besson actioneer and now I´m back at seeing yet another Luc Besson production... "Lockout" is of course more or less John Carpenter´s "Escape From New York" in space, mildly put it. But, is nowhere near the latter one. This is just a hodge podge of stereotypical characters, played in a stereotypical manner from the actors mixed with a so so script. I reckon that there´s a foundation, but it´s executed in a sloppy way spiced up with so many silly lines it´s ridicolous. Guy Pearce is normally a pretty good actor, but he left the good parts back home in this one and Peter Stormare is becoming more and more a cartoon character of himself. I don´t have that much to say about "Lockout", I reckon I don´t want to put any energy in writing a review for this mediocre movie. I´m just still trying to figure out the enigma in the shape of Luc Besson........