Escape Plan

Escape Plan - Dir. Mikael Hafstrom (2013)

"You hit like a vegetarian."

Stallone. Schwarzenegger. Two of the biggest action heroes in movie history with a combined body count well into the triple digits. Fans have always wanted to see them fight side by side, except the right project never came about. Sure, there's The Expendables, but Arnold's appearances were brief and they had to share the screen with a bunch of other red blooded action stars. Escape Plan is the first proper team-up for Stallone and Schwarzenegger though sometimes it feels like a film 20 years too late.

Stallone is Ray Breslin, a specialist who has spent decades breaking out of maximum security prisons to test their fallibilities. Breslin and his shifty partner (Vincent D'Onofrio) accept a $5 million payday from a CIA agent to test the security for a black bag prison housing criminals no country wants to house. The location is top secret so Breslin won't be able to receive outside help from his associates (Amy Ryan & Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), who are uneasy about the whole deal. He should have listened because somebody paid a lot of money to keep him locked away for good.

Breslin is dropped into the Tomb and left at the mercy of the ruthless Warden Hobbs (Jim Caviezel), who has used Breslin's own work to shore up the Tomb's defense. Breslin finds an unlikely ally in fellow prisoner Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger), the right-hand man for a mysterious boss named Mannheim, who holds the key to dismantling the European banking industry.

Escape Plan has the undeniable scent of an 80's actioner right out of the Cannon playbook. It has no desire to be anything more than unsophisticated B-movie fun. The story itself is riddled with plot holes. Never mind that Breslin's MacGyver-esque methods of escaping from prison are so convoluted that nobody else could ever possibly think of them, let alone threaten prison security. These issues will hardly cross your mind until after the film has ended because of the sheer screen presence of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. They may be decades past their prime and the banter doesn't have the same zing as it used to, but it's still a joy to see them sharing scenes. The audience cheered wildly when the former Terminator armed himself with a heavy machine gun. Jim Caviezel is suitably cartoonish as a warden so vicious, he hires Vinnie Jones as his head guard. He starts by doing the low-key, minimalist performance as seen on Person of Interest and then turns the dial up past 11 when he has to. Sam Neill and Amy Ryan are absolutely wasted in the throwaway roles of the weary prison doctor and Breslin's right-hand woman, respectively. Finally, the less said about Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson woefully miscast as a computer expert, the better.

Escape Plan pales in comparison to action classics like Predator, First Blood, and The Terminator, but it's certainly worth a viewing should it pop up on Netflix.

Rating: ** (*****)

Legend of the Guardians

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - Dir. Zack Snyder (2010)

Legend of the Guardians could be considered Watership Down with owls instead of rabbits. Though it may be an animated film with talking animals, it's hardly a shiny happy movie for kids. Guardians is a little darker and a little more violent than your normal children's fare.

Soren (Jim Sturgess) and Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) are brothers still learning how to fly. Kludd is jealous of the attention his family heaps on Soren, an idealistic dreamer fascinated with bedtime stories about the heroic Guardians of Ga'Hoole. After falling out of their tree one night, the brothers are snatched away and press-ganged into the army of Metalbeak (Joel Edgerton) and his queen Nyra (Helen Mirren). Calling themselves the Pure Ones, Metalbeak and Nyra ready their forces to attack other owl kingdoms to weed out the weak. In addition to their soldiers, the Pure Ones have slaves called pickers whose task is to gather large amounts of metal flecks. When accumulated, they generate a magnetic field that interferes with an owl's ability to fly.

Soren and an Elf Owl named Gylfie (Emily Barclay) manage to escape and traverse long, arduous distances to seek out the legendary Guardians who live in an ancient, Avatar-looking tree. After finding the Guardians, Soren is taken under the wing (pun slightly intended) of a grizzled old war veteran voiced by Geoffrey Rush. Meanwhile, Kludd willingly chooses to stay with Nyra, becoming a loyal warrior to their supremacist cause.

Guardians is based off the first three volumes of the fifteen book series, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, written by Kathryn Lasky. The film was directed by Zack Snyder and it is both his first animated movie and his first non-R-rated picture. Guardians is packed with the Snyder's trademark flourishes, mainly slow motion shots. Similar looking owls swoop at one another like WWII fighter planes. The slow motion actually helps since the action tend to look like undulating blobs of feathers. Despite that, the animation by Animal Logic (Happy Feet) is well done and the images are breathtaking.

Snyder's production is strong in visuals, but weak in story. The plot is a Cliff Notes version of the familiar hero's journey seen in countless other adventures. Snyder's desire for a darker film doesn't mesh with the studio's desire for a more family friendly tone. Serious themes of enslavement and genetic cleansing clash with scenes featuring comic relief sidekicks. Guardians simply lacks the deeper emotional resonance that Pixar has been able to capture time and time again.

Rating: * ½

Daybreakers

Daybreakers - Peter & Michael Spierig (2010)


The Spierig Brothers made their feature film debut with the low-budget zombie flick, Undead. Now, the twin siblings tackle vampires, turning them back into the bloodsucking fiends they were meant to be. Set nine years from now, Daybreakers revolves around a world almost entirely populated with vampires. A plague originated from bats turned many while others were willingly bitten out of a fear of death. Humans are rounded up by the military, kept like cattle, and slowly drained of their blood. But now, the human race is close to extinction and the blood supply is dwindling away. Without blood, the vampires will de-evolve into feral bat-like monstrosities nicknamed “subsiders.”

Ethan Hawke plays a hematologist named Edward Dalton. Unlike that other Edward, he’s no sparkly pretty boy, but he does mope a lot. Dalton is the equivalent of a vampire vegan. He refuses to drink human blood and feels pity for the humans. Dalton is in the employ of Bromley Marks, a pharmaceutical conglomerate run by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill). Dalton has been working on a suitable blood substitute to no avail.

Following a chance encounter, Dalton becomes a part of the human underground led by the crossbow wielding beauty Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan) and former vampire Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Willem Dafoe with a silly Southern accent). Elvis hasn’t a clue how he was changed back, but Dalton sees this as the chance to cure the previously thought incurable. Other characters include Edward’s brother Frank (Michael Dorman), a soldier in the human hunting army; and Alison (Isabel Lucas), Bromley’s daughter who ran away when her father turned.

Daybreakers has put some thought into what the world would be like if it went vampire. There are ads for teeth whitener and we see a homeless man holds a cardboard sign reading, ”Will work for blood.” Dafoe’s character did custom car work and was the first to develop day-time driving add-ons, like shields and roof-top cameras. Aside from those cute ideas, the Spierig Bros. never go into very intricate details about the socio-political structure of the world. Is religion a thing of the past? With blood evaporating, you’d think war between nations would be inevitable.

Speaking of which, Daybreakers is full of obvious allusions to the environmental concerns of today. Despite the high-falutin’ themes, it never attempts to be anything but a lowbrow actioner. It has some nasty moments that will jolt you out of your seat such as when a body explodes out of nowhere. As the climax kicks in, the film descends into a massive orgy of torn limbs, decapitated heads, and splattered blood. Some of the action is pretty decent, but the filmmakers waste too much time in trying to make us care about characters that are paper thin. Dafoe seems to be the only actor who understands how goofy the movie is and acts accordingly. They should have just made the film with him as the central character and turned it into a wall-to-wall action flick.

Rating: * ½