November 10, 2013 | Awake & Dreaming

Released in April of 2012 Lockout is an English language science fiction-action French film directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, and written by Mather, St. Leger, and Luc Besson. The movie stars Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun & Lennie James. The science fiction is only the futuristic setting, minor parts of the plot and some stuff – the movie is actually more action oriented.

Alright so it’s 2097 and CIA agent Snow is arrested for the murder of undercover agent Frank Armstrong who had uncovered evidence of an agent selling state secrets about the space program. In truth Snow is innocent of the crime but it only looked that way to the CIA agents headed by Secret Service director Scott Langral. Just before getting caught at the railway station Snow managed to pass on a briefcase containing the secret information to his friend Mace, who hid it before getting caught himself and sent to the maximum security space penitentiary MS One where prisoners are kept in stasis for their sentence. During his interrogation Snow himself is threatened with incareceration in MS One. Meanwhile Emilie Warnock, daughter of the US President visits MS One to investigate claims that stasis might affect prisoners’ minds, leading to psychopathy and dementia. The guards select one of the prisoners, Hydell, take him out of stasis and sent to meet Emilie for questioning as part of her research but the maniac prisoner escapes, takes a gun and kills some of the guards before letting all of the prisoners free and starts a riot, led by his brother Alex.

Emilie and her small entourage are held as hostages along with the surviving tech support and prison crew. The Secret Service alerts the President on the situation and discuss their plans to attack the prison and either kill or capture the prisoners without harming Emilie or the rest of the hostages. Snow’s agent friend Harry Shaw convinces Langral to send Snow to rescue Emilie rather than risk her life in a siege. Snow is initially reluctant, but agrees after Shaw tells him that Mace is on MS One, and could help Snow prove his innocence. Snow secretly infiltrates MS One. With Alex having realized that Emilie is the president’s daughter, he goes to secure her but she manages to escape along with her her bodyguard Hock and hide in a secure room. A problem with the oxygen supply forces Hock to commit suicide to give Emilie more time. Snow manages to sneak in after being flown to the prison and rescues Emilie and then changes her hair to conceal her gender and appearance after the prison is alerted to her true identity, allowing them to walk through the prison population. They find Mace among the prisoners but the stasis has given him dementia and made him incoherent. Mace is killed as the station starts to break down without the maintenance of the staff & the prison has begun to fall out of its orbit and crashes into the International Space Station. Guided by Langral’s electronic map, Snow brings Emilie to the escape pods but finding only space for one person, he tells her to go ahead and that he will take the ‘next’ one. Emilie however releases the pod but does not go in it, telling Snow that with her there, they have a better chance of rescuing the hostages.

As Snow and Emilie flee, they discover evidence that the prisoners were being illegally used as test subjects. Alex finds them and captures Emilie bringing her back to the control rooms while Snow is left lying in a section below, thought to be dead. When Alex learns that Hydell has killed all of the hostages, he beats Hydell and contacts the President threatening to allow Hydell and the prison population to rape Emilie if they are not released. The President refuses to allow a siege and risk Emilie, causing Langral to temporarily relieve him of his command. Langral orders the destruction of MS One. Hydell is infuriated with his brother who stops his attempts to rape Emilie and kills Alex. Snow recovers and manages to reach them just in time to save Emilie from Hydell and escape to the space suits area guided by the map. Langral has shuttles place a bomb on the prison and it is destroyed while Snow & Emilie escape in the space suits and land safely in New York. Snow however is arrested on landing and taken back for interrogation. While recovering in a hospital, Emilie realizes that Mace’s incoherent babbling was in fact the location of and password needed to access Frank’s briefcase. With the briefcase in his possession Snow meets up with Shaw who immediately opens it with the right combination but finds it empty. Snow notes that he had not given the unlock code to Shaw, and Shaw is revealed as the mole and arrested by Langral. Snow is released and his possessions returned, including a lighter given to him by Frank before his death. Snow finds a memory card containing the real secret information hidden within it. Emilie meets Snow and teases him, having learned his first name is Marion. The pair walk away together.

Good action movie but does nothing to excite me as a science fiction movie as the concepts shown are nothing new and infact seems stake and repeated. The movie is enjoyable as an action flick. It onl made @32 mil on a $20 mil budget and was considered a failure. It’s ok for a lazy afternoon on the dvd or bluray right after dinner. 7 outta 10!

I had this weird dream a couple of nights ago. It was straight outta a mid 80s horror movie – it even looked and the special effects of a horror movie of that era! I actually think this is a horror movie that I have seen many years ago just rehashed into my sleep and dreams. I dunno.

It’s a small city in the mid-western USA (aren’t all 80s horror movies in small towns or cities in the Mid West) and there is a celebration going on as the local school’s sports team (can’t remember which sport it was, either basketball or American football) has just won their 10th game in a row. So the players, cheerleaders, other students are all partying and celebrating by making a lot of noise and drinking cheap beer and honking horns. In the midst of all this, a small tremor occurs near the lake next to the town and a fissure opens up and out comes a horrible looking, stinky mess of dark brown slime with a mouth and two eyes. For the sake of this blog post let’s call this monster the slimo. The slimo is angry that it’s resting place was disturbed and is on a rampage – it sees two teenagers skinny dipping nearby and things these humans are the reason it has been moved out of it’s natural resting place and slowly glides towards them, unseen in the dark. The slimo then attacks the two teens – the effect of the slimo’s touch is a extreme burning off of the skin so that only the human flesh remains while the human is still alive. As the teens scream in agony the slimo then swallows them whole, digesting them as the flesh burns in him in a matter of minutes.

The slimo now feeling more powerful then goes about the town attacking people in the dark – in the streets, in their houses and swallowing up people. A few people manage to escape as they run faster than it can glide. It reaches a big house where the drunk students are partying – and slimo relishes feasting on drunk teenagers who stumble and fall and it manages to kill off 90% of the high school. The local cops and the townsfolks have no idea what to do to stop the slimo as cars, trucks, guns have no effect on it. Finally it enters the local hospital….

and that’s when I woke up.