Lockout
Back from vacation, back to work.
(After a fashion, I guess. I went to the movies.)
Lockout kind of snuck up on me. I don't pay much attention to movie trailers outside of the ones I actually see at the movies, so it was only recently that I saw a trailer for this thing that looked ridiculous, kind of like Escape From New York in space.
Turns out it's almost exactly like Escape From New York in space, only without the charm inherent in turning that most magnificent of American cities into a tiny, uber-urban Australia. Also, the "science" in it promises to raise more complaints than my (utterly subjective) claim that New York is the most magnificent of America's cities.
The premise? The President's daughter has gone to MS1, a maximum security prison in low Earth orbit, to see if the conditions are humane. Surprise! They're not, and she gets caught in the first ever prison uprising in space.
Enter our hero, a former agent of some federal agency or another who is about to get sent to that prison for murder. His former bosses at the Federal something-or-others decide to strap guns on him and sneak him onto the station, ostensibly because that was the first idea they had.
Man, I love this kind of movie. I had fun rolling my eyes at the contrivances of the plot and dreaming up bingo cards for the "Bad Science We Learn From Movies" game. So yes, I had fun. Also, the dialog was "action-movie clever." On a scale of "insipid" to "inspired," that puts it exactly wherever you think it fits. I'm not going to give it a numerical rating because you fine folks are still arguing over what I meant by "magnificent," and I don't think handing you more tomatoes to throw is particularly wise.
Let me wrap up this way: I don't want to live in New York, but I love to visit. I don't want to see this movie again, but I don't regret the one trip out. I wish the theater served better food, because I'd pay five bucks for a little bag of baby carrots. Most of the meaning you find is stuff you actually brought with you, so maybe next time I'll hide baby carrots in my pocket.