Lockout.

Lockout is a movie I loved the hell out of, the DVD isn't out until the end of August here and I know it's no longer in cinemas but a movie like this I think raises really interesting things about critics and personal taste and stuff which is why I got hold of a copy and decided to sit down and give it a reviewing. Enjoy!

Lockout is one of those movies that I always feel critics just don't... get. I hate to talk about this kind of stuff because I'm not a professional critic so saying I'm anything more than a viewer is pushing it, but just taking myself away from the picture just to make a point for a moment.

Mainstream critics can seemingly never appreciate a movie on simple entertainment levels - it's hard to articulate what I mean because I'm not talking about so bad it's good territory but more just middle of the road stuff, it isn't really that good but it isn't bad either, it's just entertaining but critics often ignore that or refuse to accept that if the story around it is a bit weak or the acting is dodgy and so on - even if that is kind of the point, not every film is trying to be the King's Speech. I mean I say I'm a fan of 'bad movies' but I think I actually throw the term 'bad movie' around a little too easily, a lot of 'schlock cinema' is still technically competent and still has like a story and characters, so that means that to a certain extent, it can't be bad, it can be bad on an entertainment kind of sense, but as an actual film it still works. I mean you can't just recreate a piece of grindhouse honestly with the shrapnel down the side of your sofa and your home video camera, no matter what anyone tells you, which to me says that at least on some level that really says something and that really is the same for Lockout. SEGUE. It's entertaining, that is its job pretty much full stop, yes there are flaws but I don't think they outweigh the entertainment value - and if you came here looking for the next Raging Bull, then what the fuck are you doing? At the same time I fucking hate saying that because your more average cinemagoers take that as validation to fall out with more mainstream critics because they'll just swallow whatever the theatre puts out using 'entertaining' as a defense for a bad movie - I'm not saying that if a movie is genuinely bad (and not so bad it's good territory still) and you were entertained that it is now a good movie, I think the movie itself still has to be average or better to begin with and that pretty much sums up my feelings about Lockout. Okay with that out of the way, let's review the thing.

Guy Pearce has been praised for his performance as Snow, our hero, but everything around him has been panned by critics - claiming it a shameless knock off of better movies, but I haven't seen Escape From New York since I was a kid, so maybe that is why I don't care.

Set in 2079 (does it bug you when movies set in the future give themselves a date? I know Lockout isn't some timeless classic so maybe in seventy years no one will even remember this movie...and wow I'll probably be long dead, that is kind of scary... anyway but if anyone does happen to watch the movie then, it becomes dated, you say something like 'in the near future', the movie will end up looking dated but will still be in effect timeless), our hero is Snow an ex-cia agent come chain smoker come 80's/90's action hero. He begins the film in an interrogation by the secret service/cia after a deal he is part of goes wrong, he is surrounded by bodies and is in charge of a mysterious suitcase - framed for the murder of Frank from the CIA. Snow's partner is seemingly killed in the most pathetic of ways and while all this is going on the gorgeous Maggie Grace who plays the Presidents daughter is flying off to the actual plot of the movie.

The real plot of the film centres around the experimental facility MS One which is basically a space prison, no one really questions why though - I mean I get this is probably the best place to put prisoners but this must cost a fucking bomb for the taxpayers, hell just one shuttle of prisoners would cost tax payers millions - and then you've got to run the space station and keep everyone cryogenically frozen...why not move us into space on space stations and give the prisoners the planet? I mean there are even space police what the fuuuuck. But whatever.

MSOne is basically the best prison in the entire world (is that the right expression if it's in space?) and every country wants a piece and is happy to bend over for the US to get space for their prisoners. The presidents daughter, Emilie Warnock, is basically on her way there to check out the whole stasis thing, because apparently it has less than satisfactory side effects... there is also a myth surrounding the station that the whole prison thing is just a front and they are actually experimenting on the prisoners in an attempt to make it possible for humans to travel into deep space. And it is all going so well until the black guy screws it all up... racism? Many contrivances and bad writing later, MSOne has been taken over by the prisoners and only Snow can stop them and save the presidents daughter...for some reason. But seriously, how does no one in that facility know that Emilie is the presents daughter, that is just ridiculous

Less of a plot and more of a theme is the notion of power, the entire film is built around an almost rock, paper, scissors dynamic. Characters are strong in one scene and weak in the next, for example Snow starts the film in a weak position, being that he is being caught and interogated but ends up the most 'powerful' man in the movie - his friend then dies and the foot is shifted and so on. The President is easily one of the most powerful men in the world but with his daughter taken prisoner he has no power and any power he has left is eventually taken away from him by the people under him. The prisoners themselves constantly swap rankings from scene to scene in relation to who is in the room with them and Emilie's and many of the prisoners entire character arc is basically a battle for strength and control. And I know you can say that for any movie - but this one is just a little more obvious and deliberate about it - characters balance of power doesn't change quite as regularly in other films as it does this one. Hell power is used for most of the twists in the thing too.

The movie is absolutely hilarious, Snow's witty dialogue is just incredible - he is just an excellent character, I wish he could get his own series. Snow isn't the only great character, I'm a massive Joseph Gilgun fan - and that has nothing to do with Misfits - so I really enjoyed his performance, I mean he basically plays the same character he always does but this time with an added air of menace, awesome! Plus Grace and Pearce have incredible chemistry, I normally find characters like Emilie annoying but when she is played off from Snow with this great chemistry it's really quite charming even if I'm not entirely sure the narrative really convinced me they fancied one another by the end of the film.

That isn't to say the acting is actually any good, Snow and Emilie are great characters and have good chemistry but are still restricted by archetype expectations. Gilgun really does have a tendency to overact in this film and Mace is easily the weakest character and the worst acted thing in the entire movie, despite basically being the heart of the thing.

The action is so incredibly visceral, well choreographed, shot and directed and just all out fucking mental. So much imagination must have gone into these fight scenes, they are basic scenes made extremely stylish. People punch, throw and use everything around them and this is happening within the opening moments of the film. And this film just has everything, space battles, antigrav fist fights, guns, chases, explosions - you name it. There is just something spectacular about every action sequence, whether it the big space battles, the prison riot or even just a one on one punch up, there is just this big flashy spectacleness to all the action that would make this movie feel more in place in a comicbook and it's terrific fun.

That isn't to say it is all good, there is some dodgy CGI in places - the unicycle chase sequence looks really, really fucking bad and the space sections really aren't much better plus with them trying so hard to hide it, really just makes it worse.

Still, visually Lockout is beautiful...in its own sort of way, the opening portion of the film seems straight out of a neonoir even if the city looks awkwardly green screened and it does feel kind of odd that 2079 is basically 2012 but with huge airships, a bunker for the Oval and unimotorcycles but not a whole lot else - the president has even gone back to a fat, balding white man (satirical?), but I digged the style nonetheless. It's a cool movie, even if it ain't that pretty.

Pacingwise, this film is a structural mess, the whole opening chunk of the movie is just there to get Snow into MSOne but it just goes on way too long and sets up the biggest amount of mysteries, none of which really get properly answered in the end leaving us almost with two different films with Snow as the main character in both, neither fully finished but both mixed together in some sense of flow to make one film. To be fair though, there is a lot that goes nowhere and the film doesn't blend all that well together, but for what it is, it's much more clever than it needs to be, with little bits and pieces scattered around the narrative that all work like chekhov's gun - even if the final wrap up is perhaps over a little too quickly, this film is over an hour and a half long and still feels like it needs to be longer, or at least longer in where it counts, this could have easily been two films.

You know I really hate the real liberal use of scientific accuracy for space, everytime space is in anything it's the equivalent of making a movie about the sea where everyone chats at the bottom of the ocean - there is no sound in space, space is a vacuum, bodies do a lot more than freeze, for fucks sake. Shit like this always pulls me right out of a movie. Yes, nitpicking, even I didn't nitpick I'd have hardly anything to complain about.

So do I recommend it? Lockout isn't a masterpiece, it isn't a film that will change the world, but in terms of entertainment value it's bloody perfect and in terms of general value, this is a bloody great movie that you all should check out.