Ah, 2079! It was the best of times, it was the worst of times — at least in the dark, futuristic world of “Lockout’s” criminal justice system. If an offender is convicted of a heinous crime against society, he can be sent to a floating space prison, frozen like a popsicle and carved up like a lab rat. On the bright side, security at the prison is spectacularly lax. There are worse tradeoffs.
Going to see “Lockout” is a good news/bad news, mostly bad news, sort of movie. The film stars Guy Pearce as the standard wisecracking tough guy. Pearce gets into his groove swiftly, owns it and remains entertaining throughout. The rest of the movie would work better as a video game. There’s plenty of repetitive action, but it’s not visually interesting.
Pearce plays Snow, a tough guy convicted of espionage after an old Secret Service buddy gets killed and Snow is blamed for his death. When an uprising occurs at M.S. One, a formidable space prison for the worst of the worst, Snow gets a reprieve from lengthy incarceration. A deranged convict (a truly scary Joseph Gilgun) escapes and frees all his buddies, who take over the facility during a visit by the president’s daughter Emilie (Maggie Grace, “Lost”).
Snow agrees to rescue her to avoid further imprisonment, but he’s got a secret agenda he hopes will prove his innocence once he sneaks onto M.S. One. Good thing Snow can multitask.
Their tiresome sparring is what passes for character development in “Lockout.” The movie has no intention of wasting time on something so pedestrian as making us care about the characters.