Netflix: Well obviously, I just said that
Reviewer: Mad Stacks Mark
So when I picked this on Netflix, I was geared up for stupid fun. Now I love Escape from New York; one of my favorite movies, and I know it’s kinda campy, but it’s just balls to the wall entertainment. So when I heard that this was basically Escape from New York in space with Guy Pearce, I was curious but ready for a good time. It’s essentially the same premise, just switch out some things, just a couple small things. Instead of the President getting himself caught in a sticky situation, we find the President’s daughter, played by Maggie Grace, going up to a Super-Max prison, in space, on a humanitarian mission. You know, cause we should care if the crazy killers are at least being treated well up there. Needless to say she gets herself caught up in a bit of a mess, that mess being a riot and prisoner takeover, and it all needs to be sorted out by Guy Pearce’s Snow. Yes , his name is Snow, but then again the lead in Escape from New York was Snake, so I wasn’t expecting Shakespeare here. Actually, his name get explained (cause it needed to be explained for some reason) later on in a way that made me want to put my fist through my face. But enough about my life. Now Snow’s whole deal is he was trying to get a package of apparently immense importance from someone when that shit went wrong and he’s now been convicted of terrorism and murder and such. Well that escalated quickly. So in order to free himself, Snow is offered a deal: get the President’s daughter before the prisoners realize who she is and he walks free. Yep, when it comes down to it, it is basically Escape from New York... in space.
And yet, I think back on this movie and can’t remember a fucking thing. It’s the worst kind of action adventure movie; one that just seems to blur in my head and nothing stands out. There are explosions, some fights, no blood (cause we don’t want to scare the average moviegoer, now do we?) shoe-horned in romantic feelings, and some witty one-liners. And what gets me, is that this was brought to us in part by Luc Besson, the guy behind Taken, The Professional (Leon for some people), and District B13. So I was expecting some good fight sequences that would at least keep me engaged. As far as I can recall, there was one. At the beginning. The rest of the film is taken up by cluttered CGI, pretty terrible acting, and too much seriousness. I’ll give it this, Snow had quite a few good one-liners. If anything, Guy Pearce knew what he was in for. He hams it up and makes Snow fun and entertaining when the rest of the movie is trying to be a serious action movie. Which seems ridiculous when the bad guys, the top prisoners running the riot, are two thick-accented Scottish guys, one straight-laced, the other unbridled psychotic violence. If this just ratcheted up the camp and disposed of any pretense of seriousness, this would have been great. But the biggest problem is that the serious tone at points undermines the frenetic action joy that follows Snow throughout the movie.
This is a movie best served with plenty of drinks. Drink every time Snow has a one-liner. Drink every time you can’t understand the villains (this will get progressively more difficult as time and drinks go on). Drink every time you forget that there was some plot point about the package at the beginning. Drink just cause. This could have been much better if it just reveled in it’s apparent silliness, but instead we’re left with a competent movie with entertaining if forgettable action and bland characters aside from Snow. I mean, I wasn’t expecting this to be amazing, but I was at least expecting to remember the fun of it. But then again, that might have been the alcohol’s fault.
7/10
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