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Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan, Joe Gilgun, Lennie James ... see more see more... , Peter Stormare , Jacky Ido , Tim Plester , Mark Tankersley , Anne-Solenne Hatte

Starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace and set in the near future, Lockout follows a falsely convicted ex-government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission o... read more read more...f rescuing the President's daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum-security prison. Lockout was directed by Stephen St. Leger and James Mather from their script co-written with Luc Besson, who is also a producer. Peter Stormare co-stars. -- (C) Open Road

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44% liked it

44,938 ratings

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35% liked it

116 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 50 min.

Directed by: James Mather, Stephen St. Leger

Release Date: April 13, 2012

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Flixster Reviews (1,057)

  • drcamyo
    May 7, 2012
    drcamyo
    Lockout is a big mess. I felt like I was watching a video game and not a movie. This film is basically as generic and bad as scifi action films can get. The only good part was Guy Pearce's dialogue. But the part where the movie fails is its use of Guy. They should of let him carr... read morey the movie and not have focused on the terrible story. There are a couple extremely dumb plot twists that seemed like they were thrown in at the last minute and are unintentionally funny. Also, a movie like this needs good CGI, because basically thats all it would have going for it (besides Guy). But no, the CGI is terrible compared to today's standards. Overall, Guy can be great but the rest of the film just fails.
  • fb100001048934982
    April 29, 2012
    fb100001048934982
    'Lockout' is a silly, disappointing film whose only redeemable value is Guy Pearce's entertainment value as a grade-A ass. The action pieces are few and far between and when they do crop up, they are hectic and awful. The story line is boring and Maggie Grace is aggravating, at b... read moreest. Pearce is fun to watch and listen to, but after a while you just want to give up on him too, even though you already gave up on the movie 30 minutes in.
  • MidnightMadwoman
    April 25, 2012
    MidnightMadwoman
    What a classic, throwback popcorn blockbuster! It's got everything that made all those old movies tons of fun, and I imagine people will keep watching this for years to come, just for the campy fun. However, in the last 15 years action movie grew and evolved a lot, and this is on... read moree of the ones that didn't. Whether or not that bothers you depends on how willing you are to get swept up in the endearing characters and ignore the fact that the bad guys in this movie make all the same damn mistakes bad guys in action movies always make. You know how, after Scream came out, old-school played-straight slasher movies kinda seemed boring by comparison? This is an old-school, played-straight action movie that seems a little anachronistic, archaic and quaint. In a world where the inmates of the most sophisticated mega-prison can overpower the facility with laughable ease, it only makes sense to send in an unco-operative and unpredictable action movie hero to rescue the one important hostage. The world of this movie is blissfully free of the laws of physics - and often common sense - but you won't be disappointed as long as you don't go in expecting it not to be. It's big and dumb, but internally incoherent. The MS One Supermax is held together by its own brand of badassery. The characters are so endearing and fun that I'm more than willing to forgive glaring design errors in the diegetic world and a cartoonishly antagonistic and borderline misogynistic relationship between the action movie hero and the damsel in distress. Guy Pearce rocks my stripy socks in this flick.
  • 76Majikat
    April 25, 2012
    76Majikat
    A very average film with a lot of predictability, there are some good moments in this, but it is a little drawn out in parts, feel it's a bit of a come down for Guy Pearce's abilities, however the Actor who took this film for me was up and rising Joe Gilgun who made his character... read more memorable.
  • mrbungle7821
    April 23, 2012
    mrbungle7821
    Rather derivative and not very clever, the sci-fi prison break movie Lockout is surprisingly enjoyable, in a brain-dead sort of way, mostly thanks to a few lean suspense sequences and the deadpan glory of star, Guy Pearce. The man plays a reluctant hero sent to a space prison to ... read morerescue the president's daughter (Maggie Grace) hiding amidst the dangerous inmates. It's like every action, sci-fi cliché rolled into one, and yet the movie is consistently entertaining. Pearce carries the same deadpan gumption throughout; it doesn't matter what's happening, it will not faze him and he has a quip for everything. When the first daughter asks him if her dad had any words to pass along, he quips, "Yeah, you're adopted." The roguish charm of Pearce keeps the movie grounded even when it goes a little nutty with conspiracies, obstacles, and a mad rush of a climax. The movie is set only 40 years or so in the future, and as such it feels too weirdly futuristic for the minimal time jump. Would we really have an orbiting space prison and put prisoners in hyper sleep? Anyway, the movie is a lot more fun and tolerable than I would have expected, and Columbus, Ohio's own Grace (Taken) actually gives the most mature performance of her still young career, for what that's worth. It's not great, but thanks to Pearce, it's pretty passable entertainment, especially for generous genre fans.

    Nate's Grade: B-
  • fb733768972
    April 15, 2012
    fb733768972
    When this movie started I was ready for anything. Ten minutes later I rejected that previous statement, because I was laughing too hard at the pointless story and the disgusting visual effects. I tried so hard to give this film sympathy, but when you are already on an overdone st... read moreory in a world where all the effects matter, the effects better be phenomenal, but they were shit! So as the movie starts, we are in an interrogation room with Snow (Guy Pearce), who has been accused of something that is not quite clear, and when he is locked up in prison they decide to pull him out and send him into space where he must save his "friend" and the presidents daughter, to prove himself not guilty, and to save her life. She is being held hostage by a group of escaped convicts that will do anything to get what they want. I cannot begin to count how many times I rolled my eyes during this film, the bad one liners, the horrible visuals, the cliched script and the awfully simple dialogue, just add to the disappointment that is "Lockout!" If you want a good time at the movies, you will not find that anywhere near this film. "Lockout" is one of the worse of 2012 so far!
  • DrZeek
    April 14, 2012
    DrZeek
    Snow: Don't' get me wrong, I mean it's a dream vacation. I go inside the maximum security nuthouse, get past all the psychos, save the President's daughter, if she's not dead already...I'm thrilled you would think of me.

    So I have wrongly been associating this movie with John ... read moreCarpenter and Kurt Russell. There is a certain attitude and story structure that definitely evokes this classic 80s sci-fi/action combo, but really, Lockout (or Space Jail, as I've been calling it) is much more in line with 90s Bruce Willis action movies. It has such a care free, "screw it" sort of attitude that making fun of the movie will get you nowhere, because it is very much in on the joke already. Space Jail cares very little about establishing realistic logic and is more concerned with having plenty of fun, as Guy Pearce spits out one-liners, while aboard a prison that is located in space. It is a simple gimmick, hovering over a familiar action flick plot, but the energy in its delivery kept a smile on my face.

    read the whole review at thecodeiszeek.com
  • CreedsDelight
    April 11, 2012
    CreedsDelight
    Snow: I am bringing you back from the dead.

    The main issue with Lockout is the flawed narrative. The film opens up to a very intriguing action sequence - promising us crazy B-movie action throughout. What's unfortunate is that Lockout is a pretty generic film with mediocre actin... read moreg and scattered editing. Additionally, the film had an awful marketing run, classifying itself solely as "from the producers of Taken", rather then "from the mind of Luc Besson, director of The Fifth Element", which is clearly a better suit for the film. Having said that, I did have a reasonable amount of fun throughout, mainly due to Guy Pearce's Die Hard-esque performance - although the film could have been a whole lot better. How does "space prison" hold up? Read on to find out, folks.

    Read the whole review at creedsdelight.com
  • moviewaffle
    April 23, 2012
    moviewaffle
    Convict Pearce is given a chance to go free after agreeing to rescue the President's daughter from an outer space prison where the inmates have taken control.
    A plot ripped from the world of John Carpenter, crackling Hawksian dialogue, and a hot chick with spiky black hair, yes ... read morefolks, this is my kind of movie.
    Following a wildly inventive yet simple credits sequence, the movie launches into five minutes of the worst CGI imaginable. I really thought I wouldn't stick this one out so head-achingly annoying was the mix of cheap video-game effects and shaky camera work. Thankfully the effects budget seems to have been blown on this sequence, forcing the film-makers to concentrate on the characters, and the movies a lot better for it.
    Two of my fellow Irish compatriots wrote, directed and shot this but they had to go to France to do so as the Irish Film Board would never want to be associated with something that isn't "culturally relevant". It's easy to see why the French would love this though, it's a movie that's steeped in cinema history, a throwback to both Howard Hawks and eighties sci-fi like "Escape From New York" and "Outland". It may be the cleverest dumb movie we'll see all year.
    The plot is unabashedly stolen from the aforementioned Carpenter film and Pearce is surprisingly charismatic in the Kurt Russell role. The movie really comes alive when he pairs up with the stunning Grace, forming a B-movie Bogart and Bacall partnership. The dialogue is fantastic and thankfully the performers are up to the task of delivering it. If someone like Jason Statham had been cast it would have fallen flat.
    There were quite a lot of walkouts at the screening I attended, possibly due to the movie being mis-sold as an action romp. It's really not, at least not in the way contemporary audiences are used to. This is an old-school Hollywood style romantic comedy with Sci-Fi trappings, think "His Girl Friday" meets "Con-Air". If you're expecting lavish action set-pieces you'll be sorely disappointed. Personally I'd much rather watch Pearce and Grace bounce witty insults off each other than a tedious series of slo-mo explosions. If your favorite scene in "Temple Of Doom" is the bedroom argument between Ford and Capshaw this is the movie for you.
    Rather than taking the usual route of having a sophisticated worldly villain ala Alan Rickman in "Die Hard", this takes it's cue from the anarchy of "EFNY", the main villains are a pair of Glaswegian neds, totally out of their depth. The lunatics literally take over the asylum.
    At a time when the multiplex is full of movies that are either insultingly dumb, "Battleship", or too obsessed with their postmodernist street-cred to be entertaining, "Cabin In The Woods", it's refreshing to see a movie that's clever while never employing any smugness, wildly enjoyable without being offensively crass. Mather and St. Ledger could frankly use a refresher course in directing but as writers they're an exciting new talent. Ireland's loss is France's gain.
  • gator681
    April 19, 2012
    gator681
    In "Lockout," Emilie Warnock(Maggie Grace), the President's(Peter Hudson) daughter, is being held hostage with others on board MS-One, a supermax prison in low earth orbit. So, it's a good thing CIA Agent Snow(Guy Pearce) was headed there anyway, even if it was because he was fr... read moreamed for murder and treason. Helping with the one-stop mayhem is that his partner and holder of secrets, Mace(Tim Plester), is also aboard the station. But before things get truly out of hand, the authorities want to try the subtle approach.

    "Lockout" breaks the cardinal rule of any action movie: keep it as simple as possible, as the script shuffles through more than its share of contrivances and convolutions. That's not to say I don't buy the prison break happening, as anything could quite possibly happen with budget cuts and the lowest bidder.(See, some things never change.) Otherwise, ideologically, it wants to have its cake and complain about the calories, too. And the movie does not take full advantage of its 500 vs 2 scenario and is maybe a little anticlimactic. But the reason the passably entertaining "Lockout" gets any kind of recommendation at all is because of Guy Pearce playing a smart ass for the ages. Especially note the classic opening scene where he imitates a bobblehead doll. That's not to mention the usually fine work of Lennie James.

View All Lockout Reviews

Critic Reviews

David Denby
April 23, 2012
David Denby, New Yorker

At the screening, in between laughing fits, people around me whispered, in awed tones, "B movie, 1956." Full Review

J. R. Jones
April 13, 2012
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

It's clichéd, ridiculous, and very entertaining. Full Review

Stephen Whitty
April 13, 2012
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. Full Review

William Goss
April 13, 2012
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. Full Review

Michael O'Sullivan
April 13, 2012
Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post

"Lockout" is meat-and-potatoes filmmaking at its most basic. Full Review

Kyle Smith
April 13, 2012
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. Full Review

Rick Groen
April 13, 2012
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

It does a splendid job of putting the pale into imitation and draining the life out of derivative. Full Review

Rafer Guzman
April 13, 2012
Rafer Guzman, Newsday

There's cheap, and then there's this rip-off. Full Review

Mick LaSalle
April 13, 2012
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. Full Review

Betsy Sharkey
April 12, 2012
Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times

Mostly "Lockout" is lost in space. Full Review

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    • Emilie Warnock: I'm going to ask you a few questions. Do you dream while you're under?
    • Hydell: I only dream about you.
    • Mace: I see you. I foresee you.
    • Agent Snow: People love me: Just ask your wife.
    • Snow: I was trampolining your wife!
    • Alex: I'm getting beat up by a guy named Rupert?
    • Agent Snow: You want me to fly? I think I left my cape at home.
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