Lockout

Directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger.

2012. Rated PG-13, 95 minutes.

Cast:

Guy Pearce

Maggie Grace

Vincent Regan

Joseph Gilgun

Lennie James

Peter Stormare

Jacky Ido

Tim Plester

Mark Tankersley

Anne-Solenne Hatte

Peter Hudson

The year is 2079 and former CIA operative Snow (Pearce) is accused of murdering a man who was selling government secrets. You’d think they’d be happy about this, but I guess murder is murder so here we are. Not quite. What’s really going on is that Agents Scott Langral (Stormare) and Harry Shaw (James) are questioning Snow on the whereabouts of a case containing some very sensitive information. Since he doesn’t have it to give up, and because he’s a wise-ass, Snow is about to be sent to MS-One, a prison orbiting Earth in which all of the prisoners are cryogenically frozen. Of course, before he’s put to sleep something goes terribly wrong at the prison. Because of a not-so-bright Secret Service Agent, all of the ship’s five hundred inmates are woken from their slumber and take the place over. What is a Secret Service Agent doing there? He’s escorting the President’s daughter Emilie Warnock (Grace), who is on a fact-finding mission. Obviously, the only logical thing to do is entice Snow to mount a one-man rescue mission and bring the First Daughter home safely. In other words, a remake of Escape From New York ensues.

We get some decent action scenes as Snow and Emilie run into various bad guys while trying to get off MS-One. However, they’re no so spectacular they distract us from the inherent stupidity of the plan and its execution. This, combined with the prisoners being none too smart, gives us a less than compelling movie. One other thing hurts it, as well. Maggie Graces’s performance as the Prez’s daughter is lackluster, at best. She competently recites her lines, but doesn’t make us care one way or the another. We need a little more umph from our leading lady. Unfortunately, the only reason she stands out is because she’s the only woman in the cast. Well, there is one other, but she doesn’t last long. Meanwhile, the contrivances needed to push the plot forward pile up. These include bad movie scienc, forced urgency and a couple “well whaddya know” moments.

Our saving grace is Guy Pearce in the lead role. With sarcasm turned up full blast, he provides us with a number of laughs along the way. His dialogue is essentially an unending string of smart-alec comments. I can see how this might get on some people’s nerves, but I rather enjoyed him. Unfortunately, he has fewer funny lines as the movie progresses and tries to concentrate on resolving its conflicts. Still, he makes me chuckle a good deal more than I was expecting.

Lockout is a film that puts itself in a precarious situation. Most of the good things about it are merely adequate, not strong enough to elevate it to being a good movie. We’re left with a picture that flounders along doing what it does. Then it ends after a silly bit of code-busting that makes you shake your head.

MY SCORE: 5/10

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

Taken 2

Directed by Olivier Megaton.

2012. Rated PG-13, 92 minutes.

Cast:

Liam Neeson

Famke Janssen

Maggie Grace

Rade Sherbedgia

Leland Orser

Jon Gries

D.B. Sweeney

Luke Grimes

Kevork Malikyan

In case you've forgotten, Bryan Mills (Neeson) is a man with a very particular set of skills. He showcased them in the first Taken by killing a bunch of bad guys involved in the kidnapping of his daughter. It raked in all sorts of dough at the box office proving the world hasn't lost its penchant for Steven Seagal movies, so long as they don’t actually star Steven Seagal. This time around, the families of the deceased criminals want revenge against our hero. They descend upon Istanbul, where he is working – mostly at reconciling with his baby-mama Lenore (Janssen), herself going through a terrible break-up with her new hubby. Meanwhile, their still traumatized daughter Kim (Grace) hangs out by the hotel pool. She’s the last one to find out that mommy and daddy do indeed get taken. Of course, our hero manages to escape. Now he must work his way back to save his damsel in distress while also keeping his little girl safe.

In a continuation of the right-wing fantasies of its predecessor, itself a throwback to the 80s, Taken 2 does what it sets out to: show us Liam Neeson kicking Middle Eastern ass. Still, this aspect of the film is fun to watch regardless of your socio-political leanings because it is well executed action. Some of it is shot a little too tight for my taste, presumably to mask the star’s lack of athleticism, but it still looks good. Besides, the first thing most viewers will pick up on is that this is a guy trying to save his loved ones. Surprisingly, we take a little longer to get to the meat of the picture this time, but there’s still plenty of it.

Everything surrounding the action is generic, at best. It’s so much so, it feels like a copy and paste job from one of any number of movies. Most egregiously, it drops the ball on the easiest opportunity to build upon its predecessor and include some character development. We already understand Kim is still psychologically suffering from what happened not that long ago. However, being a teenager, she’s still upset when she finds out her old man used GPS to track her down at her boyfriend’s house, a guy he’s never met. Okay, fine. When she presses him on why he would do such a thing he sheepishly offers that he hears a lot of horror stories about things happening to young folks these days. Hears stories? Excuse me? What about the fact that I just recently had to go through hell and high water to rescue your taken ass? No mention of this? Sorry, but I would've had to lay into that ungrateful little…sigh. Let me take a deep breath.

Okay, enough about me. Suffice it to say the fact Bryan doesn't even mention the abduction both he and his daughter are still smarting from proves the people who wrote the movie have no passion for its story and view it as filler until the action starts. Why should we even pay attention when they can’t even be bother to make the hero seem like a real person. He wasn't a very deep guy the first time around, but there was something there. We felt for the guy. This time, he’s even more of a booming-voiced and unstoppable machine. Therefore, we have no reason to do anything other than doze off until we hear a loud noise.

MY SCORE: 5/10

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

Taken

Knight and Day

Directed by James Mangold.
2010. Rated PG-13, 109 minutes.
Cast:
Tom Cruise
Cameron Diaz
Peter Sarsgaard
Viola Davis
Jordi Mollà
Paul Dano
Celia Weston
Jack O’Connell
Maggie Grace

We learn something about Roy (Cruise) long before June (Diaz) finds out. Right at the start of Knight and Day, we find out he’s got some pretty powerful people after him. For some reason, they set it up so that she’d be the only other person aboard a flight with Roy and assassins they’ve sent to kill him. After spectacularly escaping that situation, with June in tow, he goes on the run dragging her along and generally not telling her much of anything. Is Roy the good guy, or the bad guy? Is he lying, or not? What about the people chasing him? Where does June fit into all this? These questions drive all the action and gags that follow. With the next shootout, car chase or fist-fight never more than a couple minutes away, its definitely an action flick. Since much of that action, and nearly everything else fused with jokes, it’s also a comedy.

The near constant action is a big plus. It keeps things moving along. Our runtime breezes by. The whimsical nature of the script helps with this, too. There are no heavy scenes for us to slow down and ponder. The basic pattern goes like this: everything goes boom, a few silly lines of dialogue reveal ever-so-slightly more of the plot, everything goes boom again.

Where it falls apart is in the story. It only gives us a little at a time because its trying to stretch what little is there. What’s there is simply a rehash of something we’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. For all the mystery its presented with, it actually holds none. On top of that, the entire movie could’ve been done without the Cameron Diaz character. She’s completely irrelevant, aside from the fact that the filmmakers obviously wanted a female lead to create sexual tension. Otherwise, she just gets in the way, screams hysterically and puts herself in harm’s way on a regular basis merely so she can be rescued. She is a classic damsel in distress, except she’s a damsel our dashing hero just met.

This is strictly for those knights you just want to see a lot of explosions while Tom Cruise does the impossible. Did you see that? Anyhoo, its not terrible popcorn fare, but it isn’t especially memorable, either. About ten minutes after the credits roll, it will simply blend in with all the other action flicks you’ve seen.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

Shrink

Directed by Jonas Pate.
2009. Rated R, 97 minutes.
Cast:
Kevin Spacey
Mark Webber
Keke Palmer
Saffron Burrows
Jack Huston
Pell James
Dallas Roberts
Laura Ramsey
Robin Williams
Robert Loggia
Gore Vidal
Jesse Plemons
Maggie Grace

Plot: Dr. Henry Carter (Spacey) is a psychiatrist to the stars in Hollywood. Not only do they have serious problems, but he does, as well. Chief among them is his out of control weed and alcohol habits. He seems to have met his match when he takes on the pro-bono case of troubled high school girl Jemma (Palmer).

The Good: I’m a Kevin Spacey apologist. Therefore, I’ve liked him in just about everything I’ve seen him in. Still, I think this is his best work in a few years. He’s brilliant as a man decaying in front of our eyes. We believe everything about him. The rest of the cast is excellent, also. Most notably, Keke Palmer (Akeelah and the Bee and Nickelodeon’s True Jackson, VP) is outstanding as Jemma, the troubled teen. The same goes for Robin Williams in limited time as a movie star trying to find excuses to cheat on his wife.

The Bad: In the tradition of “gritty” indy dramas and black comedies, it’s filled with unhappy and unlikeable people doing things that are unlikeable and keep them unhappy. There’s also the traffic jam of about a gazillion different storylines that tie together all too conveniently at the end. Then of course, this culminates in one of those conclusions where everything is instantly all better but we can’t buy it for one second. Any one of the subplots could make an intriguing movie on their own. All mashed together, like they are here, none of them feels developed enough. The most fully realized of these, the main one between Dr. Carter and his young patient, could’ve been a great variation of Half Nelson. It’s even headed in that direction. However, instead of continuing down that path and putting it’s own spin on it, it pulls up short so it can tie into all the rest of the movie in one supposedly magical moment.

The Ugly: “Break glass in case of emergency” weed.

Recommendation: The performances are top notch. There is also a thread of dark humor that runs through it. However, it crumbles under the weight of its own self-pity, rendering the phoenix rising finale laughable. In short, it’s a well acted trainwreck.

The Opposite View: Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze

What the Internet Says: 6.7/10 on imdb.com (6/11/10), 30% on rottentomatoes.com, 40/100 on metacritic.com


MY SCORE: 4.5/10