News

This September, Netflix is bringing you a lot of entertainment with the highly anticipated Nicole Kidman drama series The Perfect Couple, a Netflix original drama film starring Elizabeth Olsen, and the brilliant new animated series Twilight of the Gods. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Netflix this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 5 best films that are coming to Netflix in September 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Jaws (September 1)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Jaws is a classic survival thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay co-written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Based on a 1974 novel of the same name by author Peter Benchley, the 1975 film revolves around Sheriff Martin Brody as he teams up with a marine biologist and a local fisherman to hunt down a giant white...

A first feature for the writing-directing duo of Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, whose prior work has encompassed shorts, music videos, and commercials, “Extra Ordinary” is a kind of tea-cosy “Ghostbusters” that’s consistently funny in a pleasingly off-kilter way. The presence of Will Forte as villain should help this Irish comedy (co-produced with Belgium) find North American berths, and its idiosyncratic appeal will find pockets of cult fandom elsewhere outside the U.K.

Comedienne Maeve Higgins brings a distinctive frank-yet-flaky personality not far from her standup work to heroine Rose Dooley, a wallflowerish 30-something who makes her small-town living as a driving instructor. She was once destined for other, greater things, however: Her famous spiritualist father Vincent used or perhaps exploited her own psychic gifts when she was a child, until an accident involving a “haunted pothole” put an end to both his life and her supernatural vocation. Her...

A few years back, in the heady days of 2012, Luc Besson co-write, alongside directors Stephen S. Leger and James Mather, and took the executive producer role on Lock Out, a sci-fi actioner which saw Guy Pierce charged with rescuing the President’s daughter from a hi-tech space jail overrun by hardened criminals. Just looking at that brief synopsis, you may see what a lot of people saw, that it was Very similar to John Crapenter’s 1981 classic Escape from New York. One person who definitely thought so was Carpenter himself, who took Besson to court over the glaring similarities, and via Yahoo, we now have a verdict, with a Paris appeals court coming down in favour of Carpenter, ordering Besson to pay $500,000 after being found guilty of plagiarism. The basic premise of Lockout is indeed eerily similar to Escape from New York, and to a lesser extent it’s sequel Escape from L.A.,...

Luc Besson and his EuropaCorp production company are out $500,000 (or 450,000 euros) following a ruling in a French appeals court Friday that the writer/director had plagiarized John Carpenter's Escape from New York with his 2012 sci-fi actioner Lockout, Deadline reports. The judgment, which found that Lockout "massively borrowed key elements" from Carpenter's 1981 cult classic, came down after Besson appealed an initial court ruling that ordered he and the film's co-writers and directors Stephen St. Leger and James Mather to pay Carpenter, screenwriter Nick Castle and Escape from New York rights-holder StudioCanal a measly $95,000 (or 85,000 euros). Whoops! Carpenter sought $3.3 million in his original suit, alleging Besson (who wrote Lockout's story and co-wrote the film's script in addition to producing the film) copied his 1981 hit and its 1996 sequel Escape from L.A. with its plot about a wrongly-convicted former CIA agent (Guy Pearce) who is offered his freedom if he can successfully rescue the U.

You might be thinking you heard this news already, and in a way, you have. Last fall, a French court ruled in John Carpenter‘s favor after he took EuropaCorp and screenwriters Stephen St. Leger and James Mather to court alleging that Luc Besson‘s 2012 film “Lockout” was a ripoff of “Escape From New York.” Besson, who is credited […]

The post Luc Besson Has To Pay John Carpenter For Ripping Off ‘Escape From New York’ appeared first on The Playlist.

Filmmaker Luc Besson has lost his appeal over a plagiarism case regarding the 2012 sci-fi film "Lockout" and how close the film is to John Carpenter's 1981 classic "Escape From New York".

Besson is credited with co-writing the screenplay and named in the suit which went before the courts last Fall who ruled in Carpenter's favor. Besson appealed the decision, and unfortunately for him the appeals court this week said verdict still stands.

Now, EuropaCorp, Besson and screenwriters Stephen St. Leger and James Mather have to pay Carpenter damages. The original ruling was for a total of 80,000 euros but the appeals court substantially increased the amount. Even so, it was a long way from the 2.4 million Carpenter was asking for.

In the ruling last year, the court said the surface differences of the film such as the setting and more modern hero were "not enough to differentiate the two films.

Besson’s EuropaCorp studio fined over similarities between their 2012 film and Carpenter’s cult hit Escape from New York, from 1981

Court reports have emerged showing that John Carpenter successfully sued Luc Besson’s Europacorp for copyright infringement over the similarities between Carpenter’s 1981 sci-fi thriller film Escape from New York, and the 2012 release Lockout, directed by Stephen Saint Leger and James Mather, and scripted by Besson and the two directors.

According to French law-specialist publishers Légipresse, the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris handed down its judgment on 7 May 2015, after making a “detailed comparison of the plot and development of the films”, and decided that Lockout had “reproduced” key elements of Escape from New York – known as New York 1997 in France.

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When the Luc Besson-produced sci-fi action movie Lockout arrived three years ago, many found it to be a harmless guilty pleasure. We fondly renamed it "Space Prison" and ignored its similarities to the 1981 John Carpenter cult classic Escape from New York as we do with any Hollywood product that simply seems derivative of other Hollywood product.  Well, Carpenter didn't see the movie as a harmless pleasure of any kind. In fact, he sued the makers of Lockout for plagiarism. And he won. A French court has sided with the American filmmaker over Besson, his co-writers Stephen St. Leger and James Mather and his production company, EuropaCorp. Here is the part of the ruling confirming the plagiarism, via The Playlist: both presented...

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It's funny how someone can have a day in the press that's both terrible and terrific. Take Luc Besson, for example. Today's first story about him is thrilling because I've been waiting for him to get back to science-fiction for a while. Last April, he told me during a conversation at WonderCon that he felt like he made "The Fifth Element" at the wrong time. "We had digital, but it wasn't like it is now. We still had to build everything first," he told me, and having seen some of the "Fifth Element" models in person at Digital Domain, I know what he meant. They used digital compositing and digital mattes more than almost any film made before that moment, but it was still largely a model-based shoot, and all of the aliens in the film were on-set suits and make-ups. I think it's a beautiful movie, but Besson talked...

In 2012, Luc Besson's mid-budget action factory delivered "Lockout," a sci-fi-ish action movie that saw a game Guy Pearce leading a dumb yet more-enjoyable-than-it-had-any-right-to-be adventure about an ex-con tasked with rescuing the President's daughter from a prison… in space! Like I said, it's dumb. The box office was dreadful and reviews were worse, though on a positive note, Box Office described the picture as "a sleek, slick and shameless rip-off of John Carpenter's Snake Plissken films 'Escape from New York' and 'Escape from L.A.' " And Carpenter himself agreed. Read More: 'Lockout' Is The B-Movie You've Been Waiting For All Year The director took production company EuropaCorp and the film's writers — Stephen St. Leger, James Mather and Besson— to court over the matter, claiming they plagiarized his work. Surprisingly, Carpenter has won. These kinds of cases are notoriously difficult to prove, let alone win, but in.

Lockout

Stars: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, Peter Stormare | Written and Directed by Stephen Saint Leger, James Mather

Set in the near future, Lockout follows ex-government agent, Snow (Pearce), who is falsely convicted of espionage and murder, whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from the vicious rioting inmates in the outer space maximum security prison, Ms-One.

Capturing everything that was great about 80s action movie cinema and updating it with modern-day CGI, Lockout is essentially Die Hard on a space prison. It is not a film to be taken seriously. It is most definitely a throwaway popcorn action flick featuring a wise-cracking hero, gloriously over the top villains and a completely ridiculous premise. In short, it’s awesome!

Guy Pearce, who seems to be carving a niche for himself in sci-fi, what with this and Prometheus,...

Lockout will be released by Entertainment in Video on Rental & retail DVD & Blu-Ray on 20th August 2012.

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 of 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.

For your chance to win, first like us on Facebook… Already a fan? You can skip this part.

… and then email contest@whatculture.com with the e-mail header Lockout. Make sure you leave your full name and address and that you are over the age of 15. Winners will be picked at random and notified in October.

If you enjoyed seeing Guy Pearce in outer space in this summer's Prometheus, but wish he had bigger muscles and a lot of guns, then have we got a movie for you. In Lockout, the futuristic thriller from directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, Pearce plays an old-school American badass in the model of Snake Plissken or John McClane. He's in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and is offered a chance at freedom by taking on what looks like a suicidal assignment: travel to the outer-space prison that houses the worst of the worst criminals, where a breakout has been staged and the President's daughter (Maggie Grace) is being held hostage. Lots of kicking, punching, shooting and other macho stuff happens from there, and Lockout fulfills basically every promise you get from its intense images and trailers, or even the clip you can see at the bottom...

Luc Besson‘s latest produced project Lockout is another high concept low delivery sort of film. Lockout tries mashing together Blade Runner, Die Hard and Escape from New York, but the outcome isn’t nearly as impressive. It’s actually a complete bore, with little bloodshed and not enough memorable one-liners, despite lead star Guy Pearce trying his best to sell you on his new badass persona. Lockout fails because of its low budget and a pair of directors that have no idea what they’re doing behind the lens.

In the near future the Us government will establish a prison system in space. It is home to the most dangerous offenders in the world and once you’re sent there it’s basically lights out. They put the inmates into a deep sleep, which allows for safety and convenience, but by doing so they create extreme risk of a...

Pick of the Week

"Singin' in the Rain" (1952)

Director: Stanley Donen

Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds

Story: Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions onscreen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can't stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans.

On the Disc:

The 60th anniversary edition comes with all the special features included on earlier releases, plus a new documentary on how the choreography of the film changed dance forever.

Reviews:

Rotten Tomatoes: 100%

Metacritic: N/A

Where to get it

Amazon: Blu-ray - $13.86, Digital Download - $9.99, Digital Rental - $2.99

Apple: Digital Download - $9.99, Digital Rental - $2.99 (HD: $3.99)

Netflix Instant: Not available

"Lockout" (2012)

Director: James Mather, Stephen Stain Leger

Cast: Guy Pearce,...

After their Internet sci-fi sensation Prey Alone caught the attention of Luc Besson and EuropaCorp, Irish directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger got the leverage they needed to take on a larger-scale project — resulting in the thriller Lockout. The film’s story centers on a future experimental prison in space where 500 of Earth’s most dangerous convicts are kept in an artificial state of hibernation. When the president’s daughter, Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), leads a humanitarian expedition to the prison and the inmates are awoken, the ensuing mutiny has the first daughter at the center of a hostage situation. [...]...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: July 17, 2012

Price: DVD $30.99, Blu-ray $35.99

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

2012 science-fiction movie Lockout is like Escape From New York in space, but with bad reviews and no cult fanbase.

Executive produced and co-written by Luc Besson, who brought us the sci-fi awesomeness that is The Fifth Element and came up with the idea for Lockout, the film stars Guy Pearce (Memento) as a man who’s wrong convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. Pearce is offered his freedom if he can rescue the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1) from an outer space prison when it’s taken over by voilent inmates. Apparently, it’s an offer he can’t refuse.

Vincent Regan (Snow White and the Huntsman), Joseph Gilgun (TV’s Misfits), Lennie James (Colombiana) and Peter Stormore (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus) also star in the film.

Lockout

Stars: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, Peter Stormare | Written and Directed by Stephen Saint Leger, James Mather

Set in the near future, Lockout follows ex-government agent, Snow (Pearce), who is falsely convicted of espionage and murder, whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from the vicious rioting inmates in the outer space maximum security prison, Ms-One.

Capturing everything that was great about 80s action movie cinema and updating it with modern-day CGI, Lockout is essentially Die Hard on a space prison. It is not a film to be taken seriously. It is most definitely a throwaway popcorn action flick featuring a wise-cracking hero, gloriously over the top villains and a completely ridiculous premise. In short, it’s awesome!

Guy Pearce, who seems to be carving a niche for himself in sci-fi, what with this and Prometheus,...

Marley (15)

(Kevin Macdonald, 2012, Us/UK) 145 mins

Authoritative to the point of exhausting, Macdonald's documentary compiles an awesome amount of footage, photos, interviews, etc – but then it's a big subject. Whether you really get to the man beyond the legend is debatable (this was made with Marley family backing), but there's much here you've never seen, from Bob's Rasta roots to his kick-around in London's Battersea Park.

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen (12A)

(Lasse Hallström, 2012, UK) Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt. 106 mins

An incongruous setting for a mushy fish-out-of-water romcom, with Blunt and her sheikh boss lured by McGregor's tackle.

Elles (18)

(Malgorzata Szumowska, 2011, Fra/Pol/Ger) Juliette Binoche, Anaïs Demoustier. 99 mins

Empowerment and eroticism mix uneasily when Binoche's enquiries into student prostitution affect her own life.

Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy (18)

(Rob Heydon, 2011, Can) Adam Sinclair, Kristin Kreuk, Billy Boyd. 99 mins

Rave-era yarn that's 15 years too late to be the Trainspotting of Mdma it wants to be.

Lockout hits UK cinemas today and stars Guy Pearce as Snow, a former government agent agent who is framed for a crime that he didn’t commit. When convicted, he’s sent to Ms-1, a maximum security prison which is in orbit between Earth and the moon. While doing his best to avoid capture and then ultimately to prove his innocence, a riot ensures on Ms-1 during an inspection by the president’s daughter (Maggie Grace) and there’s only one man who can save the day! You guess it, Guy Pearce to the rescue!

Lockout comes from the mind of Luc Besson who we’ve come to expect great things from and Lockout most definitely doesn’t disappoint. James Mather and Stephen St. Leger co-direct the film adding different elements to what we see on screen as James is far more cinematographer based with Stephen focused much more around...

Early this week, Brad Bird confirmed, via an interview with Crave, what many had long assumed: despite "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" being the most successful entry in the franchise to date, the Pixar veteran will not be returning for another crack at the Tom Cruise-led spy series, saying that, "I think that one of the things that’s fun about the series is that they always pull in a different director and try to get a different kind of take on the premise."

With Paramount keen to get the balling rolling on the next entry after the $700 million success of 'Ghost Protocol' -- and hoping to avoid the five year gap between the last couple of movies -- it likely won't be long before the search for a helmer begins in earnest. Of course, Paramount may not have much say in the hiring of the director: Cruise has always led this series,...

Misfits' star Joe Gilgun has revealed he has been in Dublin to film scenes for BBC One thriller 'Ripper Street'. Fresh from his performance in 'Lockout', the sci-fi adventure written by Irish duo Stephen St. Leger and James Mather, the actor has said he has landed a “guest lead role” on the Jack the Ripper-based drama, which is currently filming in Clancy Barracks in Dublin, and stars 'Pride and Prejudice' actor Matthew Macfadyen and 'Game of Thrones' actor Jerome Flynn.

Maggie Grace, Guy Pearce, Lockout Box Office: Peter Farrelly / Bobby Farrelly's The Three Stooges, Drew Goddard / Chris Hemsworth's The Cabin In The Woods Disappoint Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror has proven itself more resilient than expected. Down 37%, the comedy fantasy grossed $7 million at no. 6, for a total of $49.96 million in North America according to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. Needless to say, Mirror Mirror will pass the $50 million mark at the domestic box office on Monday. Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, and Armie Hammer star. As of April 8, Mirror Mirror had collected $40 million overseas. Its key international market is Russia, where it grossed $9.64 million. But the film has also performed relatively well ($2m+) in Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and Italy. Its reported cost is $85 million. At no. 7, Jonathan Liebesman / Sam Worthington's Wrath of the Titans drew $6.9 million (-53%) for a cume of $71.25 million. The...

Fran Kranz, The Cabin in the Woods Gary Ross / Jennifer Lawrence / Josh Hutcherson / Liam Hemsworth's The Hunger Games Box Office: 1st Female-Centered Movie in Two Decades to Top Four Weekends At no. 2 on Friday, April 13, Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly's The Three Stooges brought in $5.62 million at 3,477 sites for a so-so $1,647 per-theater average according to studio estimates found at Box Office Mojo. The Farrellys' comedy is expected to rake in $17.5 million by Sunday evening. Despite a mediocre 46% approval rating among Rotten Tomatoes' top critics, The Three Stooges should fare relatively well over the weekend proper thanks to kiddie matinees. The $30 million-budgeted, 20th Century Fox-distributed comedy features Chris Diamantopoulos (Moe), Sean Hayes (Larry), Will Sasso (Curly), Jane Lynch, Sofia Vergara, and Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls). At a close no. 3 on Friday, Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods took in an estimated $5.5 million at 2,811 locations. So far,...

Could this weekend's movie lineup finally toppled "The Hunger Games" from the top spot?

Here's a sneak preview of what's opening in theaters, including the Farrelly brothers comedy remake "The Three Stooges"; the twisty horror thriller "The Cabin in the Woods," starring "Thor" Chris Hemsworth; the comedy horror flick "Detention," starring "Hunger Games" actor Josh Hutcherson; and the sci-fi thriller "Lockout," starring Guy Pearce.

In Theaters Now (April 2012)'The Cabin in the Woods' (April 13)

Who: Richard Jenkins,...

Irish co-directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger will shortly unveil Lockout, one of the most anticipated sci-fi action films of the year, and if Irish directors aren't known for space operas that's all to the good - the new film promises to surpass the usual guns and robots fare. According to Spinoff, the action begins when the U.S. President’s daughter Emilie is kidnapped by inmates of a maximum-security prison that's orbiting the Earth. The call goes out to Agent Snow (played by Guy Pearce) the witty and at all times cool space cop. Snow and Emilie must escape the floating prison before the military blow it to pieces. Co-stars Maggie Grace and Peter Stormare told reporters that far from being a chilly lost in space caper, the script possessed a rare degree of humor that easily made its way onto the set. Working with Guy Pearce, the film's action hero,...

Now that you've seen it, what did you think? James Mather & Stephen St. Leger's Lockout aka Section 8 aka Escape from Ms One, featuring Snow, played by Guy Pearce. A futuristic concept conceived and co-written by Luc Besson, this sci-fi action comedy thriller is about a space station prison called Ms One that gets overtaken when they capture the President's daughter, played by Maggie Grace, and send in an ex-mercenary to rescue her. So how is it? Does Pearce channel Snake Plissken? Any good, or just a sci-fi ripoff? If you've seen it, leave a comment below with your own thoughts on Mather & St. Leger's Lockout. To fuel the fire, I saw Lockout and I despised it, it's so bad. So unbelievably bad, I couldn't even understand how this was made. Not only is there a utterly appalling motorcycle chase made with CG from a 90s video game console, ...

Chicago – The annoying and boring “Lockout” is a pile of aggressive junk masquerading as a good time. Some critics and viewers will pretend that this is a “fun B-movie” just because it has a few over-the-top sequences (that look completely cartoonish), an absolutely ridiculous premise, and a scenery-chewing performance from the great Guy Pearce. Don’t believe them. They’re making excuses for a movie that’s totally bereft of creative storytelling and has a screenplay that most straight-to-video directors would say needs a rewrite.

Rating: 1.0/5.0

“Lockout” starts promisingly in concept and the casting of its leading man. Lest you think I’m some pretentious film critic who can’t get into a well-made B-movie, the idea of an “Escape From New York” in space with the underrated Guy Pearce in the Snake Plissken role seemed like a slam dunk. How do you screw that up? Watch “Lockout” and find out.

Screen Rant’s Ben Kendrick reviews Lockout

Despite a solid headliner in Guy Pearce, the underwhelming marketing for Lockout, which makes the project look like a direct-to-dvd experience, has been enough to cause a lot of moviegoers to forget that the film was actually developed by well-known thriller writer/director/producer Luc Besson (The Fifth Element and Taken). While Besson outsourced directorial duties to untested feature co-helmers, James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, the fan-favorite producer was still instrumental in crafting the Lockout story – as well as overseeing production.

As a result, it’s no surprise that Lockout features plenty of Besson’s staple calling cards: most notably a snarky and rough-around-the-edges (but charming) leading man, as well as some hard-hitting action set-pieces, among other things. However, do Mather and St. Leger successfully carry Besson’s concept across the ...

Click to continue reading ‘Lockout’ Review...

Happy Friday the 13th everyone! Jason is putting on the hockey mask and black cats everywhere are doing wind sprints to make sure they won’t miss you when you walk past. Not sure how to beat all the bad luck? Try going to the movies (and leaving your umbrella at home)! Toads and goldfish aren’t allowed in theaters and there are no mirrors to break or cracks in the floor to step on. Plus, the horror, thriller, romantic comedy, and documentary films coming out this weekend should provide great distraction. But be sure to bring some salt with you. Just in case.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Friday the 13th without a horror flick. Our requisite scream-a-minute release is “The Cabin in the Woods,” from first time director Drew Goddard, best known for writing “Cloverfield.” The film is co-written by Goddard and Joss Whedon, creator of the...

Lockout is a non-sensical, direct-to-video, video game-esque sci-fi actioner that appears to have been written in a matter of hours, filmed over a couple of days and glossed up in a month's worth of post-production. This is, quite simply, not a very good movie. Yet, somehow, Guy Pearce playing the sardonic hero with all the good lines, makes everything seem as if it's not so bad. He's unable to save the film to the point you can look passed the obvious dialogue and overcooked plot, but if I were to catch this on television one night I probably wouldn't change the channel... at least not right away.

Set in the year 2079, Lockout begins with ex-cia agent, Snow (Pearce), being interrogated for a crime that isn't all that it seems (when is it ever?). Fortunately for him, his scheduled imprisonment aboard the space prison Ms One, where the convicts are kept...

Lockout

Directed by: James Mather & Stephen St. Leger

Cast: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun

Running Time: 1 hr 32 mins

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: April 13, 2012

Plot: In the year 2079, a prisoner (Pearce) is offered freedom if he can rescue the President’s daughter (Grace) from a prison in space that has been overrun by inmates.

Who’S It For?: If the thought of past action classics like Die Hard or The Rock leaves you feeling a bit nostalgic for the simple joys of explosions and gunfire, Lockout will probably be a fulfilling experience. Those looking for a well-made, clever romp of special effects and originality better look elsewhere.

Expectations: The appearance of Pearce in an action movie produced by Luc Besson (The Fifth Element) felt random … until I remembered what Taken did for Liam Neeson’s badass credibility. As for this movie by itself, the poster...

ComingSoon.net has a new featurette on Lockout , which opens in theaters today. Written and directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, the sci-fi action thriller stars Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Vincent Regan, Tim Plester, Anne-Solenne Hatte, Yan Dron, Patrick Cauderlier, Milorad Kapor, Bojan Peric and Mark Tankersley. Lockout follows a falsely convicted ex- government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President.s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison. You can also read an interview with one of the film's co-directors, Stephen St. Leger, here .

A prison break. In space. How bad can that be? Your mileage may vary, but it's hard not to at least appreciate the premise of "Lockout," the EuropaCorp action flick entering theaters this weekend.

Guy Pearce stars in the film as Snow, a former special forces operative now working on his own. When he's set up for a crime he didn't commit and subsequently left facing a drastically long prison sentence as a result, Snow's presented with a mission as his one last chance to free his future: go into outer space, infiltrate the sacked maximum security prison Ms One, and save the president's daughter from the inmates now running the asylum. Needless to say, that order is easier said than done, but it's enough to fill out a 95-minute movie.

"Lockout," directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, has an amazing cast and an amazing premise. Even if...

Ahead of the release of Lockout, we spoke to Guy Pearce about his action hero performance and the making of the film…

Under the wing of executive producer Luc Besson, directors James Mather and Stephen St Leger have come out with the fabulous debut, Lockout, a sci-fi action movie that more than makes up for its familiar story ideas with its pace and humour. At the heart of the film’s success sits Guy Pearce’s sterling performance as the bitter, wise-cracking hero, Snow.

Although better known for his heftier dramatic performances in movies such as The Proposition, Memento or La Confidential, Pearce makes for an unexpectedly brilliant action movie protagonist, and Snow may be among the best sci-fi action heroes to grace the screen since Escape From New York’s Snake Plissken.

With Lockout released in UK cinemas this Friday, we caught up with Mr Pearce to talk about his role in the film,...

Guy Pearce takes on a rare wisecracking action hero role in Lockout. Here’s our review of a genuinely entertaining sci-fi thriller…

From a stuffily critical perspective, Lockout is utterly ridiculous. But then again, it’s a movie designed from the ground up to be big, over-the-top and highly entertaining: it’s a sci-fi action flick for geeks raised on such fodder, and eagle-eyed fanatics will spot references here from action cinema of every kind.

The story and its laconic hero are straight out of Escape From New York and its sequel. Its one-liners and duct-crawling moments of suspense are clearly inspired by Die Hard. The bickering chemistry between Guy Pearce’s hero and Maggie Grace’s imperilled president’s daughter Emilie Warnock recalls Romancing The Stone. There’s even a late one-liner that appears to be borrowed from the 1986 Stallone flick, Cobra.

Pearce plays Snow, a disgraced ex-cia operative...

It must be said that French uber-producer Luc Besson's "original idea" credit for scifi action picture Lockout is something of a misnomer given that there isn't an original idea to be found anywhere in the film. No, Lockout is a pastiche, a collage of ideas pilfered shamelessly from a handful of other pictures - most notably Escape From New York - and placed in a moderately fresh setting. Luckily for audiences Besson - along with co-directors Stephen St Leger and James Mather - at least has the good sense to steal from the good stuff.Guy Pearce plays a man simply known as Snow, a former Special Agent now gone freelance. We meet Snow in the midst of a job gone badly wrong, so wrong...

If for no other reason than the sheer joy of watching longtime character actor Guy Pearce play out his version of Snake Plissken-cum-John McClane, the new silly sci-fi action film Lockout is worth your money. Directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger from a story by producer Luc Besson and a script by the three of them, Lockout plays out as slightly disappointing B-movie fare. After a botched mission on a futuristic Earth, Snow (Pearce) is set to be executed for treason against the United States. We learn as much from a very funny, very cleverly-framed interrogation between Snow and government officer Langral (Peter Stormare), who’s after a file Snow was given moments before the mission was botched. Both Pearce and Stormare spend the entire film competing for over-the-top acting bragging rights.

Hours before he’s to be killed, Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace), the president’s daughter, is kidnapped on Ms-One,...

*full disclosure: an early screening of this movie was provided by Alliance Films.

Directors: James Mather, and Stephen St. Leger.

Writers: Stephen St. Leger, James Mather, and Luc Besson.

Cast: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare and Vincent Regan.

One really cannot help laugh at a hero named Marion Snow (Guy Pearce). It is hard to be a tough guy with such a feminine name. And some of the best lines in Lockout aka Maximum Security 1 come from Snow. However, the choppy edits from directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger threaten to blow this prison space station out of the sky. This film will trailblaze April 12th in theatres nationally and film fans might want to read more reviews on this film before deciding on whether to see it on the big screen.

The poor film qualities such as generic music, continuous use of short scenes and poorly developed...

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before – in a future America, an important member of the First Family gets trapped in an inventive super-max prison the likes of which we’ve never seen, and the only person who can save them is a sharp-tongued criminal. Sounds pretty familiar, right? Unfortunately, James Mather and Stephen St. Leger‘s Lockout is no Escape from New York, but dammit if Guy Pearce‘s performance doesn’t hit some gleeful Snake Plissken-inspired high notes in the midst of some serious cinematic mess. Mather and St. Leger’s take (which comes from an original idea from co-writer and producer Luc Besson) on the “one man against a mega-prison” moves the action away from not just New York, but Earth itself – setting the majority of Lockout in a super prison in the sky. Ms One is the first of its kind, a space prison that uses the unique advantages of its...

Lockout

2012

95 minutes

rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

The funniest moment in Lockout, especially in hindsight, is a credit that appears which states that the film is 'based on an original idea by Luc Besson.'  Written and directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, the film is the sort of genre rip-off that is so old that it almost feels new again.  This film is as unoriginal as a movie can be without being a sequel, remake, or reboot.  That it is none of those things inspires a token amount of warm feelings, which in turn says something about the state of the industry.  Guy Pearce may be attempting to create a new Snake Plissken, but the film's template is pure unadulterated Die Hard.  More than that, Lockout feels less like a riff on Die Hard than a science-fiction and comparatively large-budget variation on the countless direct-to-vhs Die Hard...

Lockout

Directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger

Written by Stephen St. Leger and James Mather

France, 2012

Luc Besson is one of the most prolific, hard working individuals in the film industry today. His talents range from writing, producing to directing. While his dexterity may be enough for a host of people to shower the Frenchman with praise, it stands to reason that, notwithstanding a few exceptions, he has made the sort of films which attract the male adolescent crowd. On occasion he will be the progenitor of something that strives for more, Léon: The Professional and the upcoming The Lady being two examples, but for the most part they resemble Taken, Nikita, The Fifth Element, Transporter and District 13: Ultimatum. Besson gave birth to the original idea behind Lockout, starring Aussie Guy Pierce, then handed over the screenwriting and directing reigns to Irishmen Stephen Saint Leger and James Mather,...

In the futurist world of "Lockout," most deadly convicts will be confined to Ms-One, a maximum security prison floating in outer space. It’s not long from now (2079, to be exact) strongly suggesting the cultural shift in our society’s interest in interstellar exploration has gone from possibly exploring other planets to merely depositing our human detritus into the galaxy’s gaping maw. It’s a good thing most of these cryosleeping convicts are deranged, irredeemable nutcases, right?

Said maniacs eventually spring loose, thanks to a Secret Service agent foolishly carrying a firearm into a restricted area. Thanks to the efforts of this American cowboy, scads of European-accented baddies awaken, and despite lying in stasis, they seem pretty capable of immediate violence. This is bad news for the ship’s most prized visitor, Emily Warnock (Maggie Grace), though her medical skills obscure the baddies’ awareness that she’s also the President’s daughter.

Produced by France's finest purveyor of action movies Luc Besson, the upcoming sci-fi action flick Lockout introduces the concept of Guy Pearce as an action hero, playing the wise-cracking Snow, a mercenary framed of murder convinced to help save the President's daughter (Maggie Grace) from a group of escaped convicts at the space station prison complex Ms One who've taken her hostage. While the movie's concept may sound vaguely familiar, harking back to the action and sci-fi movies of the '80s and '90s and more recent ones like the Besson-produced Taken (in which Maggie Grace was also kidnapped!), one of the greatest revelations about the movie is the impressive work by Irish filmmaking duo James Mather and Stephen St. Leger in creating a fun, exciting and stylish movie with...

Excited for the release of Lockout this weekend? The first 5 minutes are now online and introduce us to Guy Pearce as ex-government agent Snow. Produced by Luc Besson, Lockout looks to be heavily inspired by Escape From New York and we’re interested to see how it turns out.

“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 of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison.”

Lockout will be released to theaters on April 13th, and is directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger. The main cast includes Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Vincent Regan, Lennie James, Joseph Gilgun, and Anne-Solenne Hatte.

To learn more, check out our earlier coverage:

5 Minute Clip Us Trailer and Poster...

Picture this: a maximum security prison gets overrun by the inmates, with correctional officers and other bystanders taken as hostages. One such hostage just so happens to be the President of the United States' daughter — and the only man who can save her is a former special forces operative with an agenda of his own.

Nothing too far outside the realm of blockbuster movie possibility, right? In the case of "Lockout," it gets better: all that aforementioned action? It takes place in space.

In certain hands, the far-out premise of "Lockout" could easily be fumbled — it could take itself too seriously, or it could wink way too hard at the viewer. Thankfully, "Lockout" was very much in the right hands from the very beginning (the hands of Luc Besson and his EuropaCorp studio to be precise), a fact that was very attractive to co-leads Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace in signing on for the film.

Title: Lockout Directed By: James Mather and Stephen St. Leger Starring: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stromare, Lennie James, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Jacky Ido, Anne-Solenne Hatte How could you have a plot about a guy saving the president’s daughter from an outer space prison riot and not pour every resource into making that scenario as wildly enjoyable as possible? If you’re going high concept, the only way to make it work is if you go high concept to the max. However, the guys behind Lockout only take it about halfway there, as far too much of their energy, attention and budget is stolen by lame story frills. When a [ Read More ]...

Luc Besson's filmography has been spotty for years, littered with equal amounts of sensationalistic pop art and flashy duds, a tendency that extends beyond his directing credits. "Lockout," the latest Besson producing effort, falls into the latter category but doesn't go down quietly. Casting Guy Pearce as a shockingly derivative tough guy lead, directors Stephen St. Leger and James Mather deliver an overly familiar barrage of dystopian imagery, assaultive action choreography and other vapid devices that have a distinctly Bessonian quality. Besson shares a screenwriting credit with the directors and conceived of the original idea, which isn't saying much, except that he owns this joint.   In both premise and execution, "Lockout" combines elements of Besson's "The Fifth Element" and "Escape from New York," clinging to those and countless other movies' B-movie thrills so faithfully that it at least remains watchably...

From rising directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, Lockout stars Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker, Prometheus), along with Maggie Grace (Taken, Lost) and Peter Stormare (Armageddon). Lockout, the sci-fi action thriller from the producers of Taken, follows a falsely convicted ex- government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison. Written and directed by James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, Lockout (which is called Ms One: Maximum Security internationally) stars Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Vincent Regan, Tim Plester, Anne-Solenne Hatte, Yan Dron, Patrick Cauderlier, Milorad Kapor, Bojan...

Lockout Clip called Snow from the sci-fi actioner from Open Road Films The James Mather and Stephen St. Leger flick comes out this weekend, so get hyped sci-fi fans, this one's coming out firing, and looks like a ton of fun. Lockout is scripted by Luc Besson, as well as Mather and St. Leger, and also includes Peter Stormare, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, Bojan Peric, Jacki Ido and Tim Plester. Pic is set in the near future and follows a falsely convicted ex- government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison...