I had a good time at Lockout even though I’ll be the first to admit it isn’t a very good movie. The special effects look like rejects from 1997, the tough-guy dialogue sounds like Bruce Willis castoffs and it’s not nearly as violent as I would have expected it to be, but I sat there with a grin on my face. How is this possible? Perhaps it reminded me of those cheese-ball direct-to-DVD Dolph Lundgren movies I used to watch when I had rented everything at the video store.
Guy Pearce is Snow, a highly skilled mercenary wrongly accused of espionage. To earn his freedom he agrees to rescue the president’s daughter, Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), who is being held captive by rioting inmates at an outer space maximum-security prison. That’s right, the prison is in OUTER SPACE!
“Lockout” looks like it was done on the cheap, but that is part of its cheesy charm. Even the script seems cut rate. The movie is set in 2079, and yet John Wayne, Prince and global warming references abound, as if the script had been sitting on someone’s desk for a long time and they simply changed the setting and the date but not the content.
But somehow the old school-ness of it is appealing. It’s not a remake, or a reboot but it feels familiar nonetheless, like an assembly of elements from others movies tossed into the Script-O-Matic and squeezed out the other end to form something new-ish.
Guy Pearce impresses in an action role, however, and Joseph Gilgun is a suitably off-the-wall bad guy. Too bad I felt like I needed a translator to explain his HEAVY brogue to me. I certainly caught the gist of what he was saying but often the actual words were lost. Perhaps mumbled, accented dialogue is the new cool thing. Apparently Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises” is impossible to understand as well, but I like a bit more clarity from my villains.
“Lockout” is a good Saturday matinee movie with some low-rent but fun action scenes (like parachuting from space! Perhaps that’s what passes for extreme sports in 2079) and will leave you feeling like you’ve just been Dolphed. Or Lungrened… or whatever the adjective is.
Guy Pearce seems to be trying to single-handedly bring back the action-adventure genre. The release of The Count of Monte Cristo, quickly followed by The Time Machine shows a shift in his career toward good old fashioned Saturday matinee kind of movies. The Count of Monte Cristo worked on that level, unfortunately the same cannot be said for The Time Machine. While it has all the elements for success – a strong leading man, a compelling story and good special effects – the film cannot seem to make up its mind as to what it wants to be. Was Simon Wells (the great-grandson of author HG Wells) trying for an action film for kids, a la 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or a sci fi / horror epic? It is hard to tell, and I wish he would have made up his mind. What is presented here is witlessly wishy-washy, despite some cool moments. It’s too scary for kids, not interesting enough for grown-up science fiction fans. Far superior is George Pal’s 1960 version of the same name.
Good old fashioned action / adventure that embodies the spirit of the swashbuckling movies of Errol Flynn. James Caviezel is dynamic as the Count, a man so set on revenge he can think of nothing else. Guy Pearce as Fernand Mondego, the morally corrupt aristocrat and object of the Count’s revenge is sleazy, shady and seedy, the kind of character you love to hate. The Count of Monte Cristo caters to its audience. Don’t look for deep meaning here, this is about keeping the audience busy. Director Kevin Reynolds gives us equal parts intrigue and revenge, then throws in some pretty girls, a few laughs, and some great action. It may not mean much, but it adds up to a rollicking good time at the movies.
This weekend a cast of Hollywood A-listers are going to try and do something magical. Literally.
In The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi play down-and-out Las Vegas magicians, up-staged by hotshot Steve Gray (Jim Carrey). Adding more star power is Alan Arkin as a retired magician who still has a card or two up his sleeve.
With an advertising tagline like Abracatastic! you can expect lots of illusions, but Burt Wonderstone isn’t the first movie magician to pull a rabbit out of his hat on screen.
In Death Defying Acts Guy Pearce plays the best-known magician of all time — Harry Houdini. Set in 1926, 13 years after his mother’s death, the movie introduces him to a Scottish psychic and her daughter, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Saoirse Ronan, who try and con him into believing they can contact Mrs. Houdini from beyond the grave.
Houdini has been played by everyone from author Norman Mailer and Harvey Keitel to Tony Curtis and Emile Hirsch, but it’s also possible to catch a glimpse of the real deal. The prestidigitator began filming his magic act as early as 1906 and went on to star in a series of films with titles like The Master Mystery and Terror Island, all of which are available on the DVD set Houdini: The Movie Star.
Taking their lead from Houdini, Penn and Teller starred in Penn & Teller Get Killed, a 1989 black comedy featuring a classic sequence of Teller catching pigeons in the park with his bare hands.
Audiences could pick one of two magic movies from the deck in 2006.
First, The Prestige saw Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman abracadabra their way through this Christopher Nolan-directed film about tragic results of a rivalry between two 19th century stage magicians. Fans of the movie will notice the main characters’ initials spell ABRA — Alfred Borden Robert Angier — short for Abracadabra!
Released the same year, The Illusionist starred Edward Norton as a magician who uses his magical skills to win the love of Duchess Sophie (Jessica Biel). Norton’s character is loosely based on Erik Jan Hanussen, a magician and clairvoyant who was killed by Nazis in 1933 after a long and successful sage career.
The Mad Magician isn’t notable just because it starred Vincent Price as the murderous Gallico the Great. It’s best remembered as the first movie to be shown in 3D on television.
