One Minute Movie Review: Lockout

This was originally designed to be the third installment in the "Escape from..." series that launched Kurt Russel's adult career. However, it becomes swiftly evident that the writers, directors, and producers lost faith in their product based on the speed of the film, lack luster performances, and downright goofiness of the action sequences taking a potentially gritty and thrilling concept and turning into a PG-13 rated silly spectacle in space. The Grand Theft Auto 2027 CGI scene at the beginning should have been my first clue this was going to be an aboslute futuristic fail. If the likes of Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, or Arnold Schwarzenegger had not forged the quintessential action figure role coining memorable but corny one liners, the ability to have their bullets meet every target no matter where they were aiming,  surviving bare foot glass walking and multiple mortal wounds, and escaping the utterly impossible, Guy Pearce might have scored big in this cartoonish action yarn. Instead, he quickly becomes a caricature of his predecessors with an over reaching performance that borders on the nonsensical. Grace's character is just as absurd, the remaining cast plays it so over the top, that the story rapidly moves from suspense to accidental comedy, and the "so called" hard core inmates are not frightening except in their lack of acting prowess. A true waste of celluloid. Finally, the attempt to mimic Die Hard in orbit is so obvious that it shifts from flattery to downright insult.  Truly, the studio should be charged with theft in the way they lazily steal from the 80's classic. 0 out of 5 Kernels: I felt like I was held hostage watching this Sci-Fi styled space junk and they had the unmitigated audacity to compare this mess to Blade Runner which may be the biggest insult of all.