Lockout (Unrated) (2012)
Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 123
Fresh: 47 | Rotten: 76
Guy Pearce does the best he can with what he's given, but Lockout is ultimately too derivative and shallow to build on the many sci-fi thrillers it borrows from.
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 22
Guy Pearce does the best he can with what he's given, but Lockout is ultimately too derivative and shallow to build on the many sci-fi thrillers it borrows from.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 160,897
My Rating
Movie Info
Starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace and set in the near future, Lockout follows a falsely convicted ex-government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President's daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum-security prison. Lockout was directed by Stephen St. Leger and James Mather from their script co-written with Luc Besson, who is also a producer. Peter Stormare co-stars. -- (C) Open Road
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Cast
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Guy Pearce
Agent Snow, Snow -
Maggie Grace
Emilie Warnock -
Vincent Regan
Alex -
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Lennie James
Harry Shaw, Shaw -
Peter Stormare
Langral, Scott Langral -
Jacky Ido
Hock -
Tim Plester
Mace -
Mark Tankersley
Barnes -
Anne-Solenne Hatte
Kathryn -
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Lockout (Unrated) Trailer & Photos
All Critics (125) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (50) | Rotten (77) | DVD (6)
At the screening, in between laughing fits, people around me whispered, in awed tones, "B movie, 1956."
Top CriticIt's clichéd, ridiculous, and very entertaining.
The tag-team of filmmakers seems to have only two ideas - having stupendously ugly characters shove their mugs into the camera, or staging action sequences so dizzily you have no idea what's going on.
Does a fine job of continually coming up with obstacle after obstacle for our two leads to dodge - not the least of which happens to be good, old-fashioned logic.
"Lockout" is meat-and-potatoes filmmaking at its most basic.
It's the kind of movie where someone tumbling in space above the earth's atmosphere opens a parachute and lands gently on earth without even gasping for a breath.
They don't make 'em like this anymore, except when they do and you remember why they stopped. Daft, but broadly enjoyable if you're in a charitable mood.
Lean, fun, smart without overthinking things and always equipped with a one-liner, Lockout is refreshingly free of the bull**** that plagues so many genre films.
Half-heartedly attempts to emulate the charm of the likes of John Carpenter's Escape From New York.
Lockout succeeds as a result of Pearce - who delivers an enjoyable, albeit snide, performance as a government agent turned one-man-army.
Guy Pearce channels his inner badass as the film's lead. His cross between John McClane and Snake Plissken injects the film with much-needed comedy.
While Lockout matches Luc Besson's other film projects in its devotion to being nothing more than a slick, uncomplicated spectacle, the film's ridiculously botched execution and lazy action sequences make it ultimately fall short.
[Seems] like the kind of exciting low-concept action schlock that producer Luc Besson could have engineered in his sleep. Maybe he had indigestion that night.
The sort of movie that, in decades past, would have top-lined Kurt Russell or Jean-Claude Van Damme - a macho SF action flick with no artistic pretensions.
A film this refreshingly flip rests as much on the passable competence of its director(s) as the enduringly shrugging shoulders of its protagonist.
Lockout is a film derivative of several notable genre classics, but the film does offer some entertainment value.
Whenever Guy Pearce's Snow is on screen, the film's a fun, brainless, action flick with a main character that deserves a better movie.
What surprises is how much guilty pleasure directors Mather and St.Leger, who sound like islands off the coast of France, rather than filmmakers, wring from Lockout's 95 minutes.
... [Guy] Pearce makes it fun.
Even once it has run its course, Lockout is no knockout.
The only thing this film was missing was the New World Pictures logo to come up at the beginning of it.
Sometimes, it is all about tone, and while Lockout has enough flaws to shake several sticks at, it is a film entirely in the vein of the silly, riotously fun John Carpenter sci-fi forays of the 80s
The first disappointing movie that concentrates too much on character and not enough on action.
James Mather and Stephen St Leger's debut feature isn't smart, it doesn't have anything to say about the human condition and it never takes itself remotely seriously, but none of that matters with a film this much fun.
Audience Reviews for Lockout (Unrated)
Super Reviewer
Over the years in which they've been churned out i've grown a weird fondness towards Luc Besson's exploitation B-Movie production stable. Though they have always prefered to carry plots free of realism and logic. Boasting scripts filled to the brim with stereotypical action wise cracks. At first, it was never necessarily a bad thing for me. I absolutely loved the Liam Neeson revenge flick Taken and i've always had a soft spot for The Transporter movies. I've always watched them with open minds and sometimes a good handful of his shlock can be enjoyed for cheesy pleasure despite their greatly unashamed stupidity. But what I can tell you, is that Lockout is not one of them. It's determination to be a deadly serious sci-fi thriller allows it to forget what it was that made so many other films in the area in which it exists so fun, and in equal measure how ridiculous the plot is. Guy Pearce's central performance lacks the strange charm of Jason Statham and Liam Neeson as unlikely hero's in Besson produced action vehicles. I also never found myself sympathising for Pearce's character, neither did I find his one-liners funny enough to maintain a witty script. He sort of attempts at Bruce Willis in Die Hard, it's easy to credit him for an attempt but alas the payoff is weak. The storyline itself is essentially "Con Space". It mashes up movies like Con Air with various plot points stolen from Die Hard and Assault on Precinct 13. But to little positive effect. Rather than taking inspiration from something great, it just ends up looking like an incredibly cheesy rip off. It also lacks the fun non-sensical action sequences seen in most Luc Besson fare. Honestly he produces stuff like this in his sleep, but somewhere in Lockout he must have slipped up. It doesn't help that the CGI is unconvincing which is necessary for this kind of movie. Plus the gag it builds a film around runs out of steam after the first 40 minutes or so. The bottom line is that although it's visually stylish, has worthwhile bad performances and tries to do something different it ends up being a lot less fun than it should be. I suppose when you start realising the logical flaws in a film about a heavily guarded prison overlooking the Earth you know the cheesy fun isn't going to start kicking in any time soon.
Super Reviewer
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- Emilie Warnock: So what do I call you?
- Snow: You know what, don't call me.
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- Agent Snow: Shhh!
- Emilie Warnock: Did you hear something?
- Agent Snow: No, I'm just enjoying the silence.
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- Agent Snow: Shush. Don't saying anything.
- Emilie Warnock: What, do you hear something?
- Agent Snow: No, I just wanted you to be quiet for a second.
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- Emilie Warnock: What's that?
- Agent Snow: It's to stop the bleeding, and hopefully the talking.
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- Snow: Here's an apple and a gun. Don't talk to strangers.
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- Snow: Loved da way u made smoking look good again!
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Foreign Titles
- Lockout (DE)
- Lockout (UK)
