Lockout (2012)-Jul 17, 2012

[JAWS]

Originally Posted by ObiWanShinobi

Ha it sounds like your brain was not only ON but in overdrive!

I thought the movie had plenty of action but on a much smaller scale...probably because of the rather low budget.

I think I would could have enjoyed the film but Guy Pearce's character did not do anything. He fought off one or two lower henchmen but never had a confrontation with the main villians and overall did not come into contact with many of the prisoners period. The film played more like a poorly done adventure film then an action movie.

[Bad Sandwich]

Originally Posted by JAWS

I think I would could have enjoyed the film but Guy Pearce's character did not do anything. He fought off one or two lower henchmen but never had a confrontation with the main villians and overall did not come into contact with many of the prisoners period. The film played more like a poorly done adventure film then an action movie.

Yeah, that (along with other things mentioned ad nauseam) really stood out to me as well. It's as though the writers were having such a blast skirting cliche that they forgot some of these "tired" and cliche elements are pretty much essential to a halfway-enjoyable action romp unless the writing is sufficiently strong to pull off the whole unconventional/self-aware deconstruction thing*...which here it wasn't. About 50% of Snow's one-liners were total duds as well.


*...Which is just a guess. Budgetary constraints and/or good ol poor writing could be at fault here.

[thelwig14]

Originally Posted by JAWS

I think I would could have enjoyed the film but Guy Pearce's character did not do anything. He fought off one or two lower henchmen but never had a confrontation with the main villians and overall did not come into contact with many of the prisoners period. The film played more like a poorly done adventure film then an action movie.

This x1000.

It is almost like they ran out of money or Pearce refused to do a fight scene.

If they just would have added this is in, I would have loved it.

[Wolverine626]

Netflixed the movie on Tuesday. Thought it was a great film, despite it have a couple of WTH moments. Can't wait to own it.
Though the motorcycle chase at the beginning really was terrible. If they didn't have the proper budget for that effect, why not old school it? The only other VFX that didn't look all that good was toward the end, other than that I thought the VFX were good.

[Taco Tuesday]

Originally Posted by JAWS

I think I would could have enjoyed the film but Guy Pearce's character did not do anything. He fought off one or two lower henchmen but never had a confrontation with the main villians and overall did not come into contact with many of the prisoners period. The film played more like a poorly done adventure film then an action movie.

That's sort of a trademark of Luc Besson's writing ... avoiding the "big confrontation" final fight.

[A.MONK]

Originally Posted by Wolverine626

Netflixed the movie on Tuesday. Thought it was a great film, despite it have a couple of WTH moments. Can't wait to own it.
Though the motorcycle chase at the beginning really was terrible. If they didn't have the proper budget for that effect, why not old school it? The only other VFX that didn't look all that good was toward the end, other than that I thought the VFX were good.

Are you really using the word "great" to describe this film? That word gets tossed around too loosely these days!

[arcadeforest]

Just picked this up at Redbox - will give it a watch later and hopefully will like it. Did not know anything about this until a few days ago when I found the trailer.

[arcadeforest]

Watched this tonight and thought it was decent. Plenty of wtf moments but overall it was an okay / good scfi / action film.

[Show spoiler]Did not mind that the main character did not have a big "fight" scene with prisoners. Often times they seem to go overboard with these scenes anyways.

I'll pick this up in the future when its on sale.

[Wolverine626]

Originally Posted by A.MONK

Are you really using the word "great" to describe this film? That word gets tossed around too loosely these days!

Yes. It's my kind of film, the kind that I would own, despite a couple of flaws. I'll watch just anything that I think looks interesting, but I will only own films that entertains me and this did.

[Phoenix Theory]

Originally Posted by Wolverine626

Yes. It's my kind of film, the kind that I would own, despite a couple of flaws. I'll watch just anything that I think looks interesting, but I will only own films that entertains me and this did.

+1

[ObiWanShinobi]

The low body count (by our hero) in this film doesnt bother me.

It wasn't his mission to go in there guns a blazin and something tells me its not in this guys nature to do that anyway. He wasn't trying to draw attention to himself and I got the impression he was there to get the Presidents daughter, find his friend, and get out with as little trouble as possible because before he found out his friend was there he was SSSOOO enthusiastic about going.
Besides, there was plenty of killing done by the psychopath prisoners so perhaps it was done like this to make the villains more despicable and our hero not some action hungry, bloodthirsty, "jump through the air firing two guns at once" John Woo reject.

It may not have been the most actioney of action films but it kept me interested and stimulated.

[Bad Sandwich]

Originally Posted by ObiWanShinobi

The low body count (by our hero) in this film doesnt bother me.

It wasn't his mission to go in there guns a blazin and something tells me its not in this guys nature to do that anyway. He wasn't trying to draw attention to himself and I got the impression he was there to get the Presidents daughter, find his friend, and get out with as little trouble as possible because before he found out his friend was there he was SSSOOO enthusiastic about going.
Besides, there was plenty of killing done by the psychopath prisoners so perhaps it was done like this to make the villains more despicable and our hero not some action hungry, bloodthirsty, "jump through the air firing two guns at once" John Woo reject.

It may not have been the most actioney of action films but it kept me interested and stimulated.

There's a lot of middle ground between "shooting everything in sight like a John Woo reject" and...lacking even a half decent mano-a-mano with the main villain or one of his underlings. I get it, they were going for something a little different within their throwback template, but it didn't all gel for me.

[ObiWanShinobi]

Originally Posted by Bad Sandwich

There's a lot of middle ground between "shooting everything in sight like a John Woo reject" and...lacking even a half decent mano-a-mano with the main villain or one of his underlings. I get it, they were going for something a little different within their throwback template, but it didn't all gel for me.

See this didn't bother me one bit. Snow and the "main bad guys" had no history what-so-ever. Snow was more like a pest trying to take away their meal ticket (the presidents daughter), an elusive bug that needed to be squashed that kept getting the best of them.

I rather enjoyed the idea of Snows character being a step or two ahead of the bad guys at all times. I mentioned this before, I NEVER thought for a second the bad guys would even get close to achieving the objective of getting off the station. I feel the premise of this film isn't focused on the bad guys nearly as much as it is Snow "the badass guy with one liners" reluctantly accepting a mission to save the presidents daughter while ALSO saving his friend who has the briefcase with the info to clear his name er whatever...everything else is circumstance. The bad guys were just "there" and IMO they were meant to be "there" to make the story work, to give a SENSE of opposition and nothing more.

[Bad Sandwich]

Originally Posted by ObiWanShinobi

See this didn't bother me one bit. Snow and the "main bad guys" had no history what-so-ever. Snow was more like a pest trying to take away their meal ticket (the presidents daughter), an elusive bug that needed to be squashed that kept getting the best of them.

I should probably rephrase a little. It's not necessarily a mano-a-mano specifically I was missing per se (though that would have been welcome), but I was just hoping for more in the way of a general climactic struggle or at least midway setpiece, be it a mano a mano smackdown, general escape attempt setpiece, or both. I found things pretty underwhelming in that regard.

As for the other stuff, I too never once thought any of the convicts would ever make it off...though I did expect too see at least more of an attempt/success at preventing Snow/the daughter's escaping. I DID appreciate the one step ahead aspect, as well as seeing the convicts depicted realistically in the scenario; i.e. entirely incompetent, without the inexplicable ability to properly work all the sophisticated computer equipment, etc.

[arcadeforest]

Originally Posted by ObiWanShinobi

The low body count (by our hero) in this film doesnt bother me.

It wasn't his mission to go in there guns a blazin and something tells me its not in this guys nature to do that anyway. He wasn't trying to draw attention to himself and I got the impression he was there to get the Presidents daughter, find his friend, and get out with as little trouble as possible because before he found out his friend was there he was SSSOOO enthusiastic about going.
Besides, there was plenty of killing done by the psychopath prisoners so perhaps it was done like this to make the villains more despicable and our hero not some action hungry, bloodthirsty, "jump through the air firing two guns at once" John Woo reject.

It may not have been the most actioney of action films but it kept me interested and stimulated.

lol

[ObiWanShinobi]

I dig some John Woo movies and its fun seeing guys jump in the air in slow motion firing two pistols but its total BS.

I have friends in the military and my former boss competes in pistol shooting competitions and I've taken the time to ask them if its effective to do that and they say "hell no!...not gonna hit sh** doing that!"

I asked a military buddy of mine who would win in a fight, a guy with one pistol or a guy shooting two at once and he INSTANTLY said "the guy with one". The guy with the one pistol would win immediately if not on the first shot since its MUCH easier to aim and steady yourself that way.

[ninfan81]

Did anybody who picked this up have blurry artwork on their disc art? The words around the outside with all the legalities is not even legible.

[Abaddon22]

Might be blind buying this

[Seymour]

Originally Posted by ninfan81

Did anybody who picked this up have blurry artwork on their disc art? The words around the outside with all the legalities is not even legible.

I checked mine, and the artwork isn't blurry at all. The words/numbers around the edge are slightly blurry, but still easily readable.

[ninfan81]

Thanks for checking. Mine is terrible...almost looks like a bootleg copy.