Movie Review Lock Out

Lock Out (2012) 

Directed by Steven Saint Leger, James Mather

Written by Luc Besson, Steven Saint Leger, James Mather

Starring Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare 

Release Date April 13th, 2012 

I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the TV ad for “Lockout” that praised the Guy Pearce starring action film as “Diehard Meets Blade Runner.” There are so many things wrong with this particular piece of praise that it’s difficult to narrow them all down. Most glaringly wrong is the disservice this overwhelming bit of critical puffery does to “Lockout.”

Comparing the fun, modestly entertaining, far from terrible “Lockout” to the awesomeness of either “Blade Runner” or “Diehard” puts far too much weight on the shoulders of what is a good but far from great sci-fi action movie. Comparing “Lockout” to both of those films combined is just outright cruelty; there is simply no way that any movie, especially “Lockout,” can live up to that standard.

Former CIA Operative Snow (Guy Pearce) was apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time when a powerful friend was murdered. Suspected of the killing himself, Snow is staring down a trip to the new multi-billion dollar space prison where madness from the station’s cryo-stasis whatnot machines awaits most, if not all who are sentenced there.

It would take, oh I don’t know, the President’s daughter Emily (Maggie Grace, “Lost”) getting kidnapped aboard that space prison for Snow to get out of this predicament. And whaddaya know, the President’s daughter is kidnapped aboard the space prison and only Snow can brave the newly unfrozen, madness addled prison population to rescue her before her dad is forced to blow the space prison out of space.

As my description demonstrates “Lockout” has a classically goofball sci-fi set up filled with enough stock villains and henchmen to fill 20 seasons of the old “Batman” TV series. The one thing that keeps “Lockout” from devolving into camp is star Guy Pearce who plays a slight variation on the wisecracking anti-hero we’ve come to know and be bored by in countless action films past.

It helps that Pearce is such an unexpected action star. In his best work, “L.A Confidential,” “Memento,” and “The Proposition,” Pearce used his thin frame and actorly flourish to sell audiences that he could survive just about any punishment. In “Lockout” however, Pearce is muscled up, heavily armed and wearing the standard issue stubble required of all modern anti-heroes.

The transformation is surprising and yet Pearce maintains some of the steeliness that made his earlier roles so memorable. His wisecracks have a little extra juice in them as if they weren’t just par for the action movie script course. Pearce twists his lines and tweaks the punches in a way that is similar to how Johnny Depp takes everyday dialogue and makes it sound like something no one has ever said before.

Pearce alone is worth the price of a ticket for “Lockout;” without him the film would likely be a droning bore of clichés. Maggie Grace is an attractive girl but saddled with the role of damsel in distress who occasionally gets to look tough, she’s as stuck as any other actress would be. The role is so standard at this point that even Meryl Streep with a complex accent couldn’t distinguish it.

In the end, the critic who claimed that “Lockout” was “Diehard meets Blade Runner” has done more to aggrandize his or her self than to praise the movie they seem to greatly admire. No film could live up to that standard and claiming the movie does rise to that standard is a disservice to the film’s true merits. A very fun, charismatic performance by Guy Pearce is thus lost as fans focus on the lack of “Blade Runner” and or “Diehard” qualities.

Movie Review Taken

Taken (2009) 

Directed by Pierre Morel 

Written by Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen

Starring Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace

Release Date January 30th, 2009 

Published January 30th, 2009 

You have to judge movies for what they are and not for what you think they should be. That's not an easy standard when you see as many movies as I do. Many movies have such great ideas that fail to be realize and you can't help but dream of what that movie might look like. That's often to the discredit of the movie you are watching. Taken for instance is a trashy movie but it has so much more potential to not be complete trash. But, if I am to be fair, I have to judge it as the trash it is. By the standard of trash, Taken is okay trash. 

In Taken Liam Neeson stars as a nondescript former CIA operative Brian Mills. Brian has recently retired to Los Angeles to be near his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). His time in the agency estranged him from his daughter, and her mother Lenore (Famke Janssen), and now he is attempting to make amends. Meanwhile, Brian makes money on the side working as a security guard for a major pop star. This scene exists so that Brian can offer exposition regarding his talents and resume 

For her birthday, Kim tells her dad that she wants to go on a sightseeing tour in Paris with her best friend.  In reality, Kim and her friends are going to blow off the site seeing and are planning to head across Europe on her stepdad's dime to follow U2 around on tour. Brian is against the idea of such a trip, even without knowing about the concert tour, but under the pressure from mom and daughter he agrees.

When Kim arrives in Paris we quickly find out why dad was so worried this trip. The girls immediately meet a suspiciously friendly stranger at the airport. He calls some friends and the girls are soon kidnapped. In a scene that has become iconic from the film's trailer, Kim calls her dad as the kidnapping is in progress and Neeson as Brian delivers an admittedly quite good monologue about his 'set of skills.' Vowing revenge, and to retrieve his daughter unharmed, Brian travels to Paris and uses his specialized skills to track down the kidnappers.

Taken then quickly devolves into a series of ever more ludicrous car chases and fisticuffs but that isn't such a bad thing. Under the direction of Parisian director, Pierre Morel, the action and stunts of Taken are top notch stuff. Blessed with the intense and broody Liam Neeson as lead badass, Morel sets up the action and watches Neeson knock it cold.

The trashy story of Taken and the unending violence are entirely ludicrous. Genuinely, the action and plot of Taken make Jack Bauer on 24 look like a logical masterpiece. That said, the action is big, loud and daring in many ways and it works if you are into big, loud, daring action minus all of that  tricky, plot stuff.

Keeping it simple, perhaps too simple if you prefer your movie to have characters and intelligence, Morel and company set out to make a trashy French action movie with wild car chases and a high body count and they succeeded. On its own terms, Taken is trashy but it is entertaining trash. If you're willing to overlook a lot of silliness, and pretend that it all makes sense and is totally possible, you might just enjoy this kind of trash.