Tag: Vincent Regan

I think there is a lot of negative stigma in this country towards prisoners. I mean, if they go to prison, they deserve to be there, is the general rule of thumb. Which is why no one cares about prison rape/violence, and it has become jokes on themselves. But sometimes you get other points of view, like Oz, which dehumanize these practices and make them not a laughing matter.

And it can go completely the other way too. You sometimes get a movie where you are escaping from a future space prison, which has a zero violence record, like Lockout.

Oh shit. That space prisoner has a space gun! Quick, call the space police!

Pretty simple story. This is the FUTURE! CIA Agent Snow (Guy Pearce) has been arrested! He apparently murdered another agent who was undercover, who had evidence of a different agent selling secrets about the space program. Well, that makes it look like Snow is guilty. Snow is threatened to be sent to the space prison by Scott Langral (Peter Stormare) head of the secret service. So that happens, while Snow has one of his agent buddies Harry Shaw (Lennie James) go searching for the dead agent’s briefcase that may show him as innocent.

Speaking of the space prison, you are probably wondering how there is no crime or anything. Well, they kind of put them into sleep up there, and get woken up when they are done with the sentence very nice. But reports are that being in stasis might make them crazy, or get dementia. That sucks. Clearly the president’s daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace), is the best person to send up there to investigate these claims. She wakes up and interviews a prisoner, Hydell (Joseph Gilgun), who as luck would have it is actually crazy! He escapes and releases all the other prisoners, and they also gain the president’s daughter and security team as hostages.

Hydell’s brother Alex (Vincent Regan) ends up taking charge, because he isn’t completely bat shit insane and realizes killing hostages is stupid.

Either way, rescue attempt, escape attempts, maybe everyone is actually a bad guy on this prison, not just the prisoners. Normal stuff to wonder about in a space action movie.

Always time for a smoke break when you are silencing an entire prison.

It really does take a lot more than just basic action to please me. By now, long time readers would realize that. I like action movies if they also have a nice plot or wonderful acting to it. But that is not how most action movies are made. And thus, they are dreadfully skewed on the scale at gorgonreviews.com. But hey, that is why they are my opinion.

I actually thought Guy Pearce did a nice job as a leading action star dude, but everyone else was a let down. And you know, shitty plot, some bad special effects that they didn’t work too hard on, and a pretty predictable-ish plot.

But fuck it, space prison, amirite?

In case you didn’t know, there has been lots of Snow White things going on. First one released, Once Upon A Time, a tv show with a fairy tale modern village, with a main character being Snow White. Then Mirror, Mirror (review coming soon!) a more comedic approach. Then finally Snow White and The Huntsman. A more serious or dark version of the Snow White fairy tale.

Allegedly.

All I’m trying to say is fuck the show and movie producers. No one wants this.

So what do we got here? We got a kingdom, with a great king and queen, and they have a daughter. They are kind of white supremacist, so they name her Snow White (Kristen Stewart). Well, queen dies, king is all sad. King defeats a mysterious phantom armor and finds a woman captured by them (Charlize Theron). King is immediately smitten, marries her the next day, and on their wedding night, she kills him and her army invades the castle. Shit goes crazy, Snow White is captured and put into a tower, while the Duke (Vincent Regan) and his son William (Sam Claflin) escape.

Man years later, castle and kingdom turned to shit. Queen Ravenna’s power is getting weaker. It might be based on whether or not she is the “fairest of them all”. Kind of messy with the details there. Her brother Finn (Sam Spruell) is her servant, and when he accidentally allows Snow White to escape she is furious. Apparently if she took Snow White’s heart, she would keep her power forever and no longer have to suck the souls out of beautiful women. Score!

But yeah, she escapes, into the scary forest too, so they hire a Hunstman (Chris Hemsworth) to fetch her in return for the resurrection of his dead wife. Realizes the lies, helps her escape, and agrees to get her to the Duke’s castle to lead a revolt. Also, stuff like Dwarves (including Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Bob Hoskins, Eddie Marsan, etc), fairies, stags, villages, weird shit. And you know, poisonous apples, true loves kiss, and a revolt.

I don’t even know what is going on here.

The film was inspired by Snow White tale, and then went all sorts of places. I am not mad that it is nothing like Snow White, I am more mad that the designers of the film thought making it a different Snow White was a good thing. Especially with all the Snow White shit. I think this film would have been a lot better if it just tried to make its own fantasy story instead of the kinda Snow White stuff we got.

I read that a sequel is planned. The fuck? Now they will go even further from any source material, making it even worse that the series is a “Snow White” thing.

But that is a minor complaint. The film is also too long, drags, and is kind of lame. They got what feels like the worst person ever to be the Queen’s brother, from everything to acting and costume design. We got vague journeys and scenes, that just seem like Lord of the Rings stuff. Fight plans that don’t make sense, Queen spells and power levels that do not make sense, and a prophecy based on Innocence of a heart, when everything about Kristen Stewart’s character should destroy any “innocence” by the end. Also ends kind of lamely.

Seriously though, the ambush scene involving the fairies and the giant Stag? That scene pissed me off so badly because of how unlikely any of it would have happened. Worst attempt to catch a person ever. For fucking sakes it was stupid.

I think Charlize Theron did decent for what she was given, and Chris Hemsworth as well. But that would be all. I am not a Kristen Stewart hater, but she added roughly nothing to the movie (and it is amazing that she had such nice teeth after being in a tower for 8-10 years! Minor annoyance, since other characters had bad teeth).