Thanks to those quick-on-the-draw types at NeoGaf’s Off-Topic forum I was able to find the first trailer for the latest sci-fi actioner from producer Luc Besson’s gallic B-movie assembly line Europa Corp, “Lock Out” .
And it’s looking okay. The tone of the trailer’s opening first half, with Guy Pearce taking a beating whilst snarking at his captors reminded in no small way of Bruce Willis’ performance in Tony Scott and Shane Black’s neo-noir nineties classic, “The Last Boy Scout”. For those in any doubt, that is A Very Good Thing, Indeed.
This film, meanwhile, sounds for all the world like a big old riff on the glorious John Carpenter/Kurt Russell eighties sci-fi “Escape From New York”, taking the premise of a down-at-heel loser getting a chance at redemption by rescuing the president’s daughter and setting it in space, with the rescue mission set on an orbital prison overrun by its inmates.
It’s due out in the spring of 2012 and seems to have just the right measure of self-aware humour to mentalist sci-fi action – this is one genre pic that I’ll be keeping an eye on.