Luc Besson penned and produced this actioner that's motto could be "if you liked it in another film we'll do it, too, but more". Which is not bad. Not necessarily. No.
Okay, okay, I lied. It gets old once you figure out the plan. So sit back and amuse yourself guessing what film they borrowed what bit from.
Nonetheless Guy Pearce is always good (they begin the film with him falling off a many storied building. .. and getting up and walking away, let me know what the believability quotient was going to be for the rest of the film right off the bat). Spoiler alert (like it matters): there are two, count 'em, two black guys in the whole film, grains of pepper in a sea of salt. Guess who the bad guys are?
Peter Stormare , one of my favs, phones in his part.

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Over the years in which they've been churned out i've grown a weird fondness towards Luc Besson's exploitation B-Movie production stable. Though they have always prefered to carry plots free of realism and logic. Boasting scripts filled to the brim with stereotypical action wise cracks. At first, it was never necessarily a bad thing for me. I absolutely loved the Liam Neeson revenge flick Taken and i've always had a soft spot for The Transporter movies. I've always watched them with open minds and sometimes a good handful of his shlock can be enjoyed for cheesy pleasure despite their greatly unashamed stupidity. But what I can tell you, is that Lockout is not one of them. It's determination to be a deadly serious sci-fi thriller allows it to forget what it was that made so many other films in the area in which it exists so fun, and in equal measure how ridiculous the plot is. Guy Pearce's central performance lacks the strange charm of Jason Statham and Liam Neeson as unlikely hero's in Besson produced action vehicles. I also never found myself sympathising for Pearce's character, neither did I find his one-liners funny enough to maintain a witty script. He sort of attempts at Bruce Willis in Die Hard, it's easy to credit him for an attempt but alas the payoff is weak. The storyline itself is essentially "Con Space". It mashes up movies like Con Air with various plot points stolen from Die Hard and Assault on Precinct 13. But to little positive effect. Rather than taking inspiration from something great, it just ends up looking like an incredibly cheesy rip off. It also lacks the fun non-sensical action sequences seen in most Luc Besson fare. Honestly he produces stuff like this in his sleep, but somewhere in Lockout he must have slipped up. It doesn't help that the CGI is unconvincing which is necessary for this kind of movie. Plus the gag it builds a film around runs out of steam after the first 40 minutes or so. The bottom line is that although it's visually stylish, has worthwhile bad performances and tries to do something different it ends up being a lot less fun than it should be. I suppose when you start realising the logical flaws in a film about a heavily guarded prison overlooking the Earth you know the cheesy fun isn't going to start kicking in any time soon.