Lockout 2012

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: First-time writer-directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger have put some thought into all of this - always a bonus in a no-brakes thriller, especially one of Besson's. Read more

Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies: Lockout is a largely half-hearted effort in which some of the major set pieces are so indifferently executed that they literally look exactly like sequences out of video games. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: "Lockout"...is...as dopey an entertainment as imaginable, but it's also a reminder that the film's star, Guy Pearce, has always had great screen magnetism, to which he has now added a bedrock of muscle. Also: he can act. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Pearce gets into his groove swiftly, owns it and remains entertaining. The rest of the movie, however, would work better as a video game. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: More than any masculine heroics, Pearce's primary job is maintaining the tone: smug, irreverent, and giddily punch-drunk. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Movies like this are supposed to be ridiculous on some level. It's part of the fun. But, dang. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Cavalierly conceived, generically titled and derivatively plotted. It feels like a missed chance because Pearce and Grace came ready to play. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: It's cliched, ridiculous, and very entertaining. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The editing by Eamonn Power and Camille Delamarre appears to have been handled while running from one gate to another in an airport somewhere. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Too serious to be a parody and too stupid to be a viable action pic, Lockout floats like space junk in the final frontier. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: Does a fine job of continually coming up with obstacle after obstacle for our two leads to dodge - not the least of which happens to be good, old-fashioned logic. Read more

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: Witty one-liners compensate for cliched plotting and cheesy effects in this sci-fi action thriller. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Mostly "Lockout" is lost in space. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: There's cheap, and then there's this rip-off. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: At the screening, in between laughing fits, people around me whispered, in awed tones, "B movie, 1956." Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The tag-team of filmmakers seems to have only two ideas - having stupendously ugly characters shove their mugs into the camera, or staging action sequences so dizzily you have no idea what's going on. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "Lockout" never busts out of its cheesy concept. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: It's the kind of movie where someone tumbling in space above the earth's atmosphere opens a parachute and lands gently on earth without even gasping for a breath. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Lockout is genre all the way. The film wears its colors proudly, but it also, alas, wears out its welcome. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: I kept waiting for Nicolas Cage to show up. Or Katherine Heigl. Or, god forbid, both. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Yes, it's cheesy and derivative. But Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace elevate the material, and it never takes itself seriously. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Snow is an overwritten hero who talks like a sitcom character. Every line is a wisecrack, a gag, or what he fondly thinks of as a witticism. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Most of the time "Lockout" is pleasant enough, not something to recommend to a friend, but enjoyable in the moment. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: It does a splendid job of putting the pale into imitation and draining the life out of derivative. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Lockout is the kind of manly nonsense no one wants to make anymore. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: If he's poking fun at the genre, Besson has a way to go, thanks to the distractions of a muddled story and silly ending that defies physics and all the laws of nature. Read more

Scott Bowles, USA Today: A putrid film that comes dead-weighted with hammy one-liners and a plot so silly it borders on comedy... Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: At a certain point, the pic's unpretentious B-movie style, like its generic and uninformative title, seems to indicate a simple lack of ambition. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice: The committee product of newbie directors James Mather, Stephen St. Leger, and producer Luc Besson, Lockout is, not unexpectedly, a potluck of derivative references. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: "Lockout" is meat-and-potatoes filmmaking at its most basic. Read more