Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihana

My expectations were extremely high for Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) because the filmmaker behind the camera was the one and only Luc Besson, a director who has proven himself time and again to be a visionary with films like The Fifth Element (1995) and Lucy (2014). And he’s also proven himself in non genre films like Leon: The Professional (1994) and  The Big Blue (1988). Besson’s always been a prolific director who jumps effortlessly from genre to genre with success. But I was extremely excited with Valerian because it marked his return to big budget, larger than life, escapist science fiction that we saw him play with in The Fifth Element, a film I was blown away by when I first saw it. I literally saw it five times in theaters! And if the trailer for Valerian was to be an indication of what we could expect, Besson was poised to wow us again. Does Besson still have the ability to amaze us?

Valerian is all about these special government agents, Valerian and Laureline, who are assigned to retrieve a creature, the last of its kind, who can reproduce a pearl that can offer limited amounts of energy to the universe. But of course, dark, evil forces (read: the government) are after it and so, the race is on to protect this little creature from certain death. At the same time, Valerian is trying to prove his love to Laureline, will he ever learn to love anything but himself?

This film has lots of pros, but unfortunately lots of cons as well. But lets start with the good shall we? The good is that the film is a visual tour de force, a barrage of ideas that never stop coming. Right from the opening sequences of the movie, where we see how the titular city of a thousand planets is formed, we are wowed with race after race of alien beings, who start forming a part of the gigantic floating city in space. I get what Besson was going for with this movie. He wanted to do something that was so filled with imagination and creativity that there is no way it could be ignored. He wanted to give us an overdose of awesomeness and for all intents and purposes he succeeded. Imagination never stops with this one; you’ll be saying “cool” every five seconds. Now considering the amount of imagination and design involved in this movie, it should have been a huge hit in theaters. So what happened? Why did it flop so spectacularly?

The flopping came as a result of some of the films negative attributes. For starters the films plot is paper thin. There is no plot here save for running from one place to the next, trying to save a cute little creature. Sadly, without much more than that in terms of story, the film turns into a beautiful looking, empty spectacle. Pretty to look at, but with no substance, Valerian turns into the classic case of style over substance. Then there’s the fact that American audiences like a little familiarity with their genre fare and you’ve got yourselves the ingredients for a perfect bomb at the box office. If a film doesn’t come from some pre-existing universe that audiences were just dying to see come to life, then they won’t care or connect, even if the film is good. Valerian and Laureline comes from a French comic book from the sixties that American audiences never read or heard of until now. For Besson it’s a lifelong dream come true to bring his childhood comic book heroes to life, but for American audiences Valerian and Laureline is something they are not familiar with at all, filing it under the “too weird” file.

Then there’s this male chauvinist thing about it. Valerian treats women like sex objects, and for most of the film he treats Laureline like crap, even though he’s supposed to have affection for her. He’s always being the quintessential “guy” telling her to “wait here” while he takes care of everything, which today is considered “passé” by savvy movie audiences. In todays modern films, women have grown past the damsel in distress cliché, but apparently, nobody gave Besson the memo. Even the title of the film is chauvinist when you think about it. The comic was called Valerian and Laureline, not just Valerian. Why kick the female out of the film’s title? Is she not integral to the film? Are they not a duo? I roll my eyes at that type of thing. Then there’s the thing about the two protagonists having zero chemistry together. They do not look like they are attracted or in love with each other at all! It’s like we’re supposed to believe Valerian is passionately in love with Laureline, but there’s nothing there to prove it to us. It seems to me that if LOVE is the theme that is going to hold this film together, and it is supposed to be, well then Besson should have made sure it was passionate and heartfelt. He should have made sure their love for each other shined through and quite honestly, it doesn’t. Valerian comes through as a selfish cold guy who cares only for himself. I mean, I get it, he’s supposed to be selfish and cold in order to learn the ways of love, but come on. At least a glimpse of their love for each other would have been nice.

But I don’t think Besson ever meant for it to be “deep” or profound, it was simply meant to be a spectacle, eye candy in its purest form. So maybe if you go in with that mentality you won’t be disappointed. There’s a couple of inside jokes in there as well for lovers of The Fifth Element, actually, the film has many similarities with The Fifth Element, certain scenes in Valerian felt copy pasted from The Fifth Element, but fear not. Valerian has so many new ideas, you won’t mind. Final say is that this is an amazing film visually, conceptually and design wise, but is totally void of the love and emotions that it professes to be about, so that in my opinion is its biggest fault and in my opinion the reason why it tanked at the box office. And that’s weird because Besson’s theme, in a lot of his films has always been love, and human emotion, so in that sense I was surprised that the film was lacking in that area. Yet, in the films defense I will say that it didn’t deserve to fail as big as it did because there is space out there for escapist films whose sole purpose is to entertain us, and in that respect, Valerian did not fail at all.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

Angel-A (2005)

Angel - A (2005)  

             

Director/Writer: Luc Besson

Cast: Jamel Debouzze, Rie Rasmussen

Luc Bessson’s films have always had this strong visual sense to them, he likes to load them with amazing shots, an abundance of color and detail. But one of the things that I’ve also noticed about his films is that he cares a lot about emotion, he likes to make us feel, to appreciate each other, to enjoy life. He likes to make us remember that love overpowers anything. Remember how in The Fifth Element (1997) the final element in the equation was true love? Besson likes to show through his films that love is what makes life worthwhile, which is something I enjoy about his films. Angel-A is no exception, it’s yet another film emphasizing love for others and for oneself. The thing about Angel-A is that the first few minutes lead you to believe that this is going to be just another by the numbers film about a guy who owes money to some gangsters, but if you keep watching, you’ll soon realize that that’s just the kick off point for something far more profound and touching.

Angel-A is all about a hustler named Andre. He owes around 50 thousand dollars to various unsavory dudes out on the streets and they have all decided to come collecting at the same time. So Andre has a couple of henchmen after him looking to punch his lights out. When he sees no exit to it all, he decides to jump of a bridge. Before he does that, he looks up at the sky and asks God why he’s never answered any of his cries for help. Andre doesn’t know it, but God has listened this time. And he’s sent one of his angels to help, her name is Angela.

The premise for Angel-A (2005) is not a new one; that of an Angel being sent down from heaven to help a human who is in a particularly nasty situation. One example that comes to mind is The Heavenly Kid (1985), a film about a guy who’s got to earn his place in heaven by helping somebody on earth. The idea of an Angel falling in love for the person they are supposed to be helping has also been done before in films like Date with an Angel (1987), Always (1989), City of Angels (1998), and one of my all time favorite movies about angels: Wings of Desire (1987). But Angel-A is a different kind of angel movie. Angela is far from perfect, she’s no goodie little two shoes. She smokes cigarettes, kicks whoever’s ass she has to kick and fucks like there’s no tomorrow. Some movies play with the idea of a god sent Angel with more respect then others, this one is a loosey goosey version of an Angel. But besides that, she’s here to help Andre find his path and learn to love others and himself. Will she achieve her mission? Will Andre ever set his life on the right track?

A couple of things made this one a keeper for me. Number one is that it’s actually an unpredictable film; you think it’s going to play out one way and it goes another. I also enjoyed the fact that the film was in black and white. As an illustrator of black and white comic books, I enjoy the black and white aesthetic very much, I think it offers its own visual flare, it’s own uniqueness. Luc Besson exploits this black and white look of the film very much, the sets, the illumination, everything is done to exploit the black and white nature of the film. I loved that Paris is one of the main characters in the film. There are a few films in which the city becomes a character. Films like Taxi Driver (1976), Hirsohima Mon Amour (1959) and Lost in Translation (2003) are examples of films in which the city becomes an integral part to the films look and feel and Angel-A is one of these films. Besson chose some beautiful, iconic locations to set his film in and it just makes the movie that much more splendorous. I mean, Paris at night, there’s no way you’re not going to love that.

Then we have the final element that truly got me and it was this films heart. Besson’s films tend to be all about people truly feeling for each other, making connections in the middle of dire straits. Besson’s films are all about humans helping each other, especially when they are hitting rock bottom.  Besson’s Leon: The Professional (1994) was all about Mathilda, an orphaned 12 year old girl finding an unlikely savior in the form of Leon, a hitman. Leon accepts her into his life, even though Mathilda obviously disrupts it. On Angel-A, it is Andre who begs God for a savior and gets it in the form of Angela, the sexy as hell, six foot, chain smoking Angel. The dynamics between Andre and Angela are fantastic. The contrast between a little guy and a six foot, sexy Angel makes for an interesting visual. Jamel Debouzze (Andre) and Rie Rasmussen (Angela) have great chemistry together, I bought their unlikely romance, they manage to stir some real emotions into their performances. There’s this amazing scene that really got to me in which Angela is showing Andre all about learning to love oneself, it literally brought tears to my eyes. It’s not every day a movie can do that to me. And it’s a testament to Debouzze and Rasmussen as actors and a testament to Besson’s talents as a filmmaker who knows how to nail emotions and a beautiful looking movie home.

Rating: 4 out of 5     

                                                    

Behind the Scenes Awesomeness: The Fifth Element (1995)

Conceptual Artwork 

Concept Art by Jean Paul Mezieres

Conceptual art by Jean Paul Gautier for Ruby Rod, back when Ruby Rod was going to be played by Prince 

Conceptual Artwork for Mandashowan spaceship by Jean Giraud 

Lucy (2014)

Title: Lucy (2014)

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-Sik Choi

They are calling Lucy a “Stoner Film” and I would have to agree, the film does have an emphasis on abstract visuals, sometimes goint into what I like to call “trippy territory”, or what a more eloquent reviewer would call “surrealism”, these are dream like sequences in the film that don’t necessarily adhere to logic or reason. Luc Besson, the French director/producer/writer behind Lucy has always been a very eclectic type of director, and one of my favorites. He’s made all kinds of films throughout his career, for example, just recently he directed Robert Deniro and Michelle Pfiffer in The Family (2013). He’s also done dramatic films like Leon: TheProfessional (1994), which I still think is one of his best. The one film in Besson’s repertoire that made me think he was the right director for a film like Lucy was The Fifth Element (1997) primarily because The Fifth Element is such an effects driven film, and Lucy is most certainly an effect heavy film. The previews for Lucy got me excited because I love it when Besson does sci-fi, he always strives to show us something we’ve never seen before. He takes his imagination to new frontiers in his films, and I love that sense of escapism he infuses in some of them. So did Besson ‘wow’ us once again like he’s done with his previous films? 

Lucy is all about a woman who is suddenly thrust into a world of drug trafficking, a world she knows nothing about. Yet as fate would have it she ends up as a courier, transporting an extremely powerful experimental drug that makes your brain function at 100% capacity. Problem is that the packet she’s carrying burst open inside of her body! Almost immediately the drug gets into her blood stream and it isn’t long before Lucy begins to experiment what it means to have your brain functioning at full capacity. She soon starts learning everything that the mind can achieve when it is in full power! She starts developing these amazing abilities that she didn’t know she had!

So this film has many good things going for it, first off, it’s all about the visuals, Lucy acquires amazing powers and starts using them, with each passing moment she becomes more and more powerful, which offers us these awesome moments where she displays her new abilities. That’s where the strength of the film is at, in the visuals. Lucy acquires amazing powers like telepathy and telekinesis! Also, in Lucy we go back in humanities history, we analyze humanity, where we began, what we’ve evolved into, why have we done what we’ve done with the planet and all that, which was cool, and of course, all these themes lend themselves for awesome effects that brought to mind scenes from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969), actually in more ways than one. Sure, there’s the surreal element, but also because it has to do with collecting all of humanities knowledge in one super computer, which immediately brought to mind the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is also a super computer. Lucy’s plot about the experimental drug that enhances your brain brought to mind Limitless (2011) because both films play with the same idea, the only difference is that Lucy goes a bit further with the idea by entering into the realm of time travel and telekinesis.

The only real let down for me with this movie is that since it comes from Luc Besson, the director of The Fifth Element (1999), well, I was expecting something as epic and huge as The Fifth Element, but in reality, Lucy is actually a ‘small film’ with big ideas. As it is, I was expecting for the film to end with a bang, instead it ends with a whimper, and a promise of future films. It has that kind of open ending that leaves you with a huge question mark in your head. But overall, I had a blast with it, it just needed something extra to make it truly awesome. The ending leaves you wondering what’s next? Kind of like the ending for Highlander (1984) where you are left wondering what the main character is going to do with his new found powers and knowledge. What I’m saying a Besson fan might leave the theater feeling underwhelemed, but overall, Lucy’s an action packed film, with car chases, shoot outs, telekinesis, surreal imagery and thought provoking themes. Plus we have the ever beautiful Scarlett Johansson, who continues to amaze with her beauty and as a performer. I’m hoping they do make a sequel, I’d love to see where else they can go from here because I was left wanting more, which I’m sure was the filmmakers purpose from the get go.

Rating: 4 out of 5      

  

Leon (1994)

Title: Leon (1994)

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman, Danny Aiello    

               

The most controversial aspect of Luc Besson’s Leon (1994) is the suggested romance between Mathilda, the 12 year old girl who wants to become an assassin, and Leon, her protector and mentor. Mathilda is a little girl who lives in a very troubled household in which everybody is always screaming at each other, everybody spews hatred, you know, you’re a-typical ass backwards dysfunctional family. Mathilda’s father even steals cocaine from his drug dealers and therefore places his entire family in jeopardy! Of course Mathilda hates living there, which is why she spends most of her time outside of the house, smoking cigarettes behind her abusive father’s back. One day, Mathilda’s father has to answer to a crooked DEA officer about some missing cocaine, and since the coke never turns up, Mathilda’s father is killed, and so is her entire family! Lucky for Mathilda, she was out in the convenience store buying milk for Leon. One thing leads to another and Leon ends up taking Mathilda, unwillingly at first, into his life. Will this new lifestyle workout for Leon?  Can he take care of something else other than himself?  

So why does a little girl fall in love with a man three times her age? Well, she develops feelings for Leon because he protects and cares for her, something she never got from her family. Leon also ends up saving her life at one point. He doesn’t slap her around the way her father did either, so she begins to fall for the guy even though he is considerably older than she is. Relationships with huge generational gaps are not unheard of in cinema, examples of this are Kubrick’s Lolita (1962), Adrian Lyne’s Lolita (1997), Harold and Maude (1971) and Birth (2004). But after a test screening in L.A. in which the audience reacted negatively to Mathilda’s advances towards Leon, these elements were deemed too racy and so director Luc Besson decided to edit the film in order to omit those Mathilda/Leon scenes that displayed some intimacy between the characters. Jean Reno says he wanted to portray the character of Leon as slow of mind, as a character who wouldn’t even think about having a relationship with Mathilda; this element of Leon comes across exactly like that. He is shocked beyond measure when Mathilda confesses her feelings to him. In reality, Mathilda’s affections come off as childlike and more than likely misguided, but you get the vibe that her feelings are of genuine affection for Leon. If you watch the American version of the film entitled ‘The Professional’, then you are getting the edited version. You’ll get less scenes of this interplay between Leon and Mathilda, but if you get the deluxe edition, then you’ll see a bit more of what goes on between them, which by the way is not in bad taste, Luc Besson handles things extremely well displaying Mathilda’s affections, which come off as nothing more than a harmless child hood crush. 

  

The film was also edited in other ways, for example, the character of Mathilda is a 12 year old girl who wants to become “a cleaner” or a hired assassin. So we have scenes of Mathilda cleaning her guns, dismantling a gun and putting it back together again, we even have a scene in which she threatens to kill herself by putting a gun to hear head. Images of kids handling guns in a film are always a risky because it’s an idea that will be seen in a negative light by ultra conservative audiences and the Motion Picture Association of America. Why? Because it’s an idea that we don’t want to propagate; the idea of children carrying instruments of death. If you choose to show scenes such as these on your film, you have to make sure that it is justified or else your film will more than likely get flamed by critics and moral snobs. Many times a film will receive a cold reception at the box office if it gratuitously displays children handling guns in one form or another. For example, Irving Kirshner’s Robocop 2 (1990) got a lot of heat because it depicted a 12 year old kid running a drug cartel, cursing like a sailor and shooting machine guns. The Monster Squad (1987) suffered from the same malady; on that one we have kids stabbing female vampires square in the chest and a character called ‘Fat Kid’ loading a shotgun, cocking it and shooting The Monster from the Black Lagoon with it. Most recently, Kick- Ass (2010) and its sequel Kick Ass 2 (2013) also got criticized for the character of Hit-Girl, a gun totting, sword carrying teen. But while the violence in some of these films I’ve mentioned might come off as gratuitous (yet tons of fun to watch) on Leon it feels justified. Mathilda feels threatened by the world she lives in, she was abused physically by her own father, she lost her entire family to a mad man and now avenging her little brother’s death is what drives her.  She has nowhere else to go, and the only father figure she knows is an assassin named Leon, you do the math. I say Mathilda is a character that speaks volumes about adapting in the wake of adversity.  

True, the scenes in which Mathilda asks Leon to train her to become a killer and the subsequent scenes in which he actually takes her on an assignment to kill somebody will probably result shocking to some, to me it’s just a movie with high entertainment value and good ideas. I like it when a film attempts to shake me up a bit. But behind the controversy and the violence, at heart there is a good film about two people who actually need each other. Mathilda obviously needs Leon for the reasons I’ve already mentioned, but Leon is an extremely lonely man. When he is not killing, he is training or going to the movies, or cleaning his plant, which he calls his best friend. At heart, we have a man whose life is empty and sad; a man who needs the light that Mathilda brings to his life. There are some great scenes where both characters are simply having fun being all silly and goofy around each other, lightening up their lives as best they can. So the film isn’t as violent as you might be led to believe, it’s actually a sweeter film then it is violent.

An astounding element of this film is the cast; starting with Natalie Portman who was 11 years old when she was cast for this film. The numerous array of emotions she conveys on her performance is amazing and made even more amazing when we take in consideration how young she was 11 when she made this film. The casting director was going to say no to Portman because she was so young, but when Besson saw her audition, he gave her the part! The film basically revolves around the character of Mathilda so the right casting of this role was essential.  The young actress who would embody Mathilda needed to convey a plethora of emotions necessary for the part. In my opinion, they couldn’t have made a better choice than Portman, who is amazing here. There’s this awesome scene where Mathilda is getting drunk in a restaurant…awesome stuff, in some scenes she's terrified, in others she's crying beyond redemption, she really displays a whole spectrum of emotions. Gary Oldman is an amazing actor who used to play a lot of villains earlier in his career and this is one of his best ones, if you ask me, Oldmans character on this film is right up there with ‘Drexl’ from True Romance (1993) in terms of craziness. Oldman is bat shit insane on this film, even more so when he takes his pills! In turn, Jean Reno plays his character with a cool mellow vibe, he’s got a childlike innocence to him; he will be the nicest killer you’ve ever met. Funny how this film makes you feel empathy for a cold blooded killer!

The idea for Leon came to Besson while making La Femme Nikita (1990), if you notice, both films share a few similarities, starting with the fact that they are both about women who want to become killers. On La Femme Nikita, Jean Reno also plays a killer who even dresses in the same fashion as Leon. Besson always felt that he could expand on this character, center a film around the killer, so he wrote Leon, always having Jean Reno in mind for the part. Funny how this film was the film that Besson made while waiting for Bruce Willis’s schedule to clear up so he could finally film The Fifth Element (1997) with him. In the interim between that waiting, Besson wrote Leon and shot it! The Fifth Element was a dream project of Besson’s, yet it is Leon, the film he made in between his big dream project that is considered to be the superior film. Me? I say they are both good on different levels, each good within their genre. So my final words is, if you haven’t seen Leon, do yourself a favor and check it out, it’s filled with awesome performances all around and let’s not forget, this was Portman’s breakout performance! She does an astounding job in this film, you’ll love her character, a little girl who struggles to survive as best she can in this harsh world.  

Rating: 5 out of 5

Lockout (2012)

Title: Lockout (2012)

Directors: James Mather, Stephen St. Leger

Cast: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare

Review:

I love films that take place in space because space always has this aura of danger to it. In these kinds of films you have to deal with the idea that humans were not made to be in space, it is very obviously not our natural habitat. Not only that, space is quiet and lonely; I’ve never been up to space, but you kind of get the idea that if you float a couple of hours up there in all that darkness, you’ll end up feeling disconnected from humanity. To me, it’s that quiet, that isolation, that imminent danger and risk factor that makes it such a great setting for a movie to take place in. Plus, space is the great unknown, we know next to nothing about it except that it’s vast and seemingly never ending. That mystery surrounding space is what pulls me in to these type of movies. So it’s no surprise that once Lockout was release I was there as soon as I could to see it. How was it?

Lockout tells the story of a guy named Snow. He is wrongfully accused of a murder, so he is being sent to this super jail in space called MS-1 where he will be held in suspended animation for 15 years to pay for his ‘crime’. At the same time, the presidents daughter, a young lady be the name of Emilie Warnock, is visiting MS-1. She’s making sure that the prisoners are being treated correctly and that the process of cryo-stasis is a reliable one. Rumors are running around that turning convicts into popsicles has secondary effects on the inmates. Supposedly when unfrozen from a long sleep an inmate can suddenly suffer from space dementia or a bad case of the shakes. Others say that you can have nightmares while under cryo-stasis. Imagine having a nightmare that lasts for 15 years! Problems start when every single one of the inmates in MS-1 is unfrozen are released! Now all the loons and psychos are running free through the ship. First order of the day? Kidnap the Presidents daughter as ransom for their demands! So now, instead of being turned into a Popsicle himself, Snow is going to MS-1 to rescue the presidents’ daughter! Can he pull it off right smack in the middle of a major jailbreak?

Guy Pierce plays the super tough Snow, a guy who takes a licking and keeps on ticking. You try and punch out a confession out of this guy, and he’ll spit a one liner for every punch you give him. You tell him he’s going to be frozen for the next fifteen years for a crime he didn’t commit and he tells you he’s looking forward to it. That’s right boys and girls; this is the kind of movie Lockout is, like something straight out of the eighties. Which means this is not a movie to be taken seriously at all, and if you didn’t get that from simply watching the previews, well then I’m telling you, this movie is brisk, fast paced and quick with a one liner. In fact, after a while you kind of get the feeling that that’s the only language Snow speaks, not a single line of dialog from this guy is serious! He is a non stop barrage of jokes and sly remarks. Guy Pierce as the wisecracking Snow is part of what makes this flick a little more watchable then it should be, other wise, had it starred someone like Mark Wahlberg, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much.

This kind of film is tailor made for me; I’m the audience that studios targeted to merchandise this film. I was raised on a steady diet of 80’s action films like Die Hard (1988), Commando (1985), Lock-Up (1989) and Escape from New York (1981). So of course I was going to go and watch this one. I mean the previews hailed it as a mix between Blade Runner (1982) and Escape from New York! But of course, previews will tell you anything to get your butt inside the movie theater. And that they did because this film is nothing like Blade Runner, I don’t know where they dug that one out of. But it is a lot like Escape from New York, so I guess they only half lied on their advertising campaign. Same as Snake Plissken in Escape from New York, Snow is a guy who’s treated like crap by the system. He’s going to be the scapegoat to pay for someone elses crimes, he’s the guy the system loves to stump with their boot. Until the day they need him. When they need him they quickly change their attitudes. They offer him a full pardon, give him all the weapons and gadgets he needs and send him on life threatening mission. What producers won’t tell you is that this film is also a bit like Escape from L.A. (1996) because it’s also about having to go into a dangerous penitentiary to rescue the presidents’ daughter. Lockout also has elements from films like Stuart Gordon’s campy and gory prison break film, Fortress (1992), but if I’m to be even more accurate I’d say its closer to Fortress 2 (2000) which takes place in a maximum security prison out in space. The point is that this film is not very original, at all. Expect no surprises. This is a compilation of a lot of films that came before it.  

    

But so what, while watching Lockout you’ll notice that it’s obvious these guys knew the kind of b-movie they were making. They wanted a film filled with wise cracks, fast action and a happy ending. It’s a film made by French guys playing the Hollywood game note for note. Luc Besson knows what American audiences want to see and he’s giving it to them. It’s not unlike what the Italians did back in the day with films like 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982), which by the way also has some similarities with Lockout. Another way to look at Lockout is that it works just like The Transporter films. You know they are not the best action films ever made or ground breaking or though provoking on any level. What The Transporter films do is play with a pre-established formula for an action film; but who cares right? Because it’s always cool to see Jason Statham driving fast cars and kicking some ass. Lockout is the same type of picture; originality is not a priority, this film is simply playing with the genre, which of course can be fun. Believability is not the main concern here either; the filmmakers’ main concern is that you have a good time at the movies. They want you too laugh and say “cool!” every five seconds. Unfortunately some of the effects work won’t make you say “cool” every five seconds. There’s this completely laughable and terribly achieved effects sequence that has Snow stealing a futuristic motorcycle and ensuing on a high speed chase. The whole sequence was computer generated, but not in a good way. I nominate this sequence for worst computer animated sequence of the year. I mean, this one is right up there with the crappy aliens from TheDarkest Hour (2011). Worst part of all is that the filmmakers chose this terrible sequence to open their movie with!

   

I respect Luc Besson as a filmmaker. When the guy is on, he makes films like Leon: The Professional (1994) and The Fifth Element (1997). Currently he keeps directing European films that never see the light of day in America, and produces many others that do. As a producer, he doesn’t really care about making quality films; he cares more about making money. The Transporter films are a good example of this. Not the best films in the world, but they make a pretty penny, and they also allow new upcoming directors to stretch their artistic muscles and learn a thing or two about filmmaking. Lockout is one such film. It was directed by a duo of Besson protégés called James Mather and Stephen St. Leger; two guys with not a lot of real filmmaking experience in their hands, save for their short films, but hey, that’s how many great filmmakers start out, so maybe these guys will be the future. For now, we get their first steps in filmmaking with Lockout. Final words on Lockout: I love space faring adventures as much as the next guy (and this one had its moments) but some of the effects work on Lockout are amateurish! At least the quick action and the numerous one liners will keep you entertained. Unfortunately this is the kind of movie you forget as soon as you leave the theater. It’s a quick fix for sci-fi junkies like me self, but not a full course.

Rating: 3 out of 5