Its credits claim that Lockout is “based on an original idea by Luc Besson,” but there is nothing original about Besson’s “idea.”  Lockout is, depending on your viewpoint, either an homage to or a ripoff of John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981), except that this one takes place largely in orbit.  So many elements are familiar that even people who have never seen Carpenter’s futuristic prison movie (which I love) will experience deja vu watching Lockout.  It isn’t a bad movie, but it is difficult for me to like or recommend something that is so patently imitative.

The president’s daughter (Maggie Grace) is taken captive on an orbiting maximum security prison (it sure doesn’t seem very “maximum security” to me) and framed CIA agent Snow (Guy Pearce, who wisecracks constantly) is sent up to get her, if possible.  There are two or three major subplots, none of which are particularly interesting, and lots of running around the space station and crawling through access tunnels.  The level of violence is staggering for a PG-13 movie; this is one action movie that cries out for a proper R rating.

Pearce’s laconic hero is quite likable, even if the actor does not try very hard to put across the dramatics.  Maggie Grace is better as the woman in peril, who shows a social conscience that Snow decidedly lacks.  The main villains are appropriately ugly, smart and mean (they are the worst of the worst, after all), some of whom are “a little different” after coming out of stasis.  The space prison set seems awfully complex for what it is (what must that prison have cost?), and there are way too many firearms where absolutely none would be tolerated (a risk to all).  Ultimately Lockout is an amenable time passer, especially for action fans, but there is no way in Brooklyn that it should ever be considered “original.”  And Snow, even after his first name is revealed, is no Snake Plissken.  ✰ ✰.  17 April 2012.