Lockout Review: Huston, We Have A Riot

Here’s a top pro pro-tip: Even when trapped on an orbiting space prison with hundreds of raving, rioting madmen, it’s still a bad idea to send bullets screaming around all that equipment and air tight seals. Bad things could happen.

Happily, on board the prison space station in Lockout, opening today, not only are the laws of common decency suspended, but the laws of physics as well. Everybody walks on the floor, just like we do on earth, even though we’ve all seen YouTube videos of space shuttle astronauts floating weightless. Those closets of super-big guns, which should be superfluous seeing as how all the prisoners are supposed to be in suspended animation for their sentences, don’t do any actual damage to the space station. The station itself seems to have a lot of, well, space in it, with endless empty hallways leading to other empty hallways. Check out those NASA YouTube videos of the space shuttle: Not exactly a lot of square footage in there. And don’t get me started about the return of characters to earth in space suits that protect from the fire of reentry better than NASA’s high-tech heat tiles.

Houston, we have a problem.

If things like that bother you, do not see this movie.

If, however, you enjoy a silly, frothy space romp with an engaging lead character, Lockout is a decent if not great option.

Guy Pearce plays Snow, your standard issue tough guy with a military past framed for a crime he did not commit. He’s 90% swagger, 10% wisecracks and 10% heart of gold.

You added correctly. He’s a 110% kinda guy.

When the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace) goes up to verify if there are any shenanigans going on against the prison population, she gets herself involved in a low-orbit space riot, silly girl. Snow is the only man in heaven or earth capable of penetrating the station and rescuing her.

It would all be too cliché for words, except Pearce plays Snow with such a gleeful smartmouth persona that you simply can’t help having a good time.

Nothing else in the movie soars quite as much as he –or that troubled space station – does, but everything is workman enough to get you through the flick. The special effects are standard issue, about the level of TV’s Battlestar Galactica. The bad guys are sufficiently crazy and/or determined. The girl is sassy and tough right when you expect. Supporting characters show heroism or betrayal right on cue.

When they turn on the lights, you’ve had a decently good time and are ready for a snack.

Just don’t try to tell your physics teacher about life in space based on this film. She may flunk you.

Lockout is rated PG-13 for action and sexual references (concerning the threats the bad guy makes about the girl) and a few instances of language which is not pervasive. Acceptable for teens.