Thanks to The Expendables, or no thanks, depending on your stance against awesome ’80s action stars, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have finally seen a return to the big screens in the past few years and most recently, they were together in a little action film titled Escape Plan. Stallone and Arnold in a movie together, teaming up and trying to escape a maximum security prison, all Lock Up style. Can you ask for anything better? I think not!
Release: Oct 18th, 2013
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: When a structural-security authority finds himself set up and incarcerated in the world’s most secret and secure prison, he has to use his skills to escape with help from the inside.
Tatlock’s Quick ‘n Dirty Recap: Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) breaks out of prisons for a living. He’s probably the only person that wants to go to prison, mainly cause he gets a shit ton of money for finding all the flaws in the system and due to past events, he wants to make sure all prisons are secure.
Because of his unusual talent, certain individuals seek out Ray and ask him to test out a new, highly secret prison, known as the Tomb. The prospect of a big payout and testing a supposedly unbreakable prison, is too much to pass up, so Ray agrees. However, it only takes a few minutes once he is picked up, that he realizes the whole truth wasn’t given to him. Thankfully, he meets up with the big man himself, Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who agrees to team up with Ray, to try to find a way out of this hell. Can the two work together as a team and find a way to freedom in a prison that has a nasty warden named Hobbes (Jim Caviezel), who also happens to be a big fan of Ray’s work and specifically designed this prison based on all of Ray’s findings?
Tatlock’s Opinion: Escape Plan felt like a nice throwback to the ’80s action movies of Stallone’s early days. It isn’t filled to the brim full of action, but it has some pretty good fight scenes, two big action stars chewing up scenery and a big baddie, whose plans start to crumble around him, once these two heavyweights team up. It does feel a lot like the ’80s Stallone movie Lock Up, which isn’t a bad thing, but you can certainly say Escape Plan isn’t winning any awards for bringing anything original to the table. The movie does fumble over it’s plot every once and awhile and can leave you confused, which is not usually something you see in a straight action movie, so this might leave some frustrated. As for me? It left me with some questions.
Verdict: Small review for a straight action movie, that doesn’t try to be anything, but a vehicle to team up two of my favourite ’80s action stars. That may come off sounding like not a big thing, but unless you don’t have a pulse, this movie will be enough to satisfy any retro action junkies addiction. Just don’t expect balls to wall action.
Rating:
