Featuring producer Luc Besson (the writer behind Taken) and Maggie Grace (the daughter who was Taken), the high-octane outer space thriller Lockout made an appearance at WonderCon 2012 today. This time, the man with a particular set of skills is no longer Liam Neeson, but Guy Pearce (Memento), playing Snow, a man wrongly accused of conspiracy to commit espionage. His one chance at a pardon comes when he is tasked with rescuing the president’s daughter from a maximum security outer space prison facility when the inmates take control. Lockout also stars Peter Stormare (Constantine) and is the feature directorial debut of James Mather and Stephen St. Leger. The film opens April 13th. Hit the jump to check out our WonderCon panel recap.
The Lockout panel started off with the trailer that was previously released by Open Road and Film District. It doesn’t highlight Snow’s (Pearce) charisma and sarcasm as much as other trailers, which I find to be a strong selling point to the movie. The addition of Besson lends some gravity (pardon the pun) to the project and his influence is readily apparent. The panel also screened five minutes of footage from Lockout which focused on Snow’s entry into the facility, a nice anti-gravity fight between Snow and a random prisoner and his daring rescue of Emilie Warnock (Grace). It also touched on a bit of the madness and personality of the prisoners involved as they force a prison engineer to open a locked door standing between them and the president’s daughter. While Pearce’s wise-cracks were welcome, some of the plotting was simply inane, as in [SPOILER] Emilie’s bodyguard blowing his own brains out to preserve the remaining oxygen in the room or Snow jabbing a “self-directing” needle into Emilie’s eye in order to jump-start her brain functions.
Grace was present for an intimate Q&A after screening the footage. I’ve posted her comments below:
Overall, the film does look fun and funny with a little bit of crazy thrown it. It seemed like a combination of a lot of Escape from New York, with some The Fifth Element and Die Hard for good measure. If any or all of those films appeal to you, do yourself a favor and check out Lockout on April 13th.
For all of our continuing coverage on WonderCon click here.
Here’s the synopsis for Lockout:
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.
In an exclusively cut sequence for WonderCon, director Rupert Sanders presented us with a five-minute compilation from Snow White and the Huntsman. It began with a cavalry charge, the daring knights of King Magnus’ (Noah Huntley) forces literally smashing through the Queen’s Shadow Army. Next, we see Snow White (Stewart) making a daring escape from the Queen’s dungeons. It’s out of the frying pan and into the Dark Forest for Snow White, who encounters the evil and nightmarish creatures in the woodland’s depths. Enter The Huntsman, in a familiar scene in which the Queen demands his assistance in returning the fair Snow White.
I’ll admit, I was sold once I saw the footage, but there were more surprises in store as both Theron and Stewart came on stage for a panel discussion with Sanders. I’ve outlined their comments below:
The footage shown at the panel was more than enough to convince me to check this movie out this summer. If you’re a fan of Lord of the Rings, I think you’ll find the aesthetics and the themes to be to your liking. This just so happens to be a tale told with a defiant female protagonist (which I’m sure is a nice change for Stewart) and an equally imposing female villain in Theron’s Queen Ravenna.
The panel kicked off with a very bizarre clip featuring a dessicated (and obviously fake) corpse speaking from a hospital bed. Apparently, this was meant to be a very ill Tim Burton, who was presided over by two attractive nurses and a doctor who preached holistic medicine. After a very strange sequence of events which tried to revive Mr. Burton (and failed), we got on with the show. Author/screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith moderated the panel which included Bekmambetov and Walker. While the previous trailers hadn’t entirely convinced me to see the film, the following action sequence definitely did, but skip the next paragraph if you’d like to avoid spoilers.
Yeah, that definitely made me want to go see this flick, which is promising to be heavy on action and axe-play. Walker looks completely badass when he’s swinging the two-hander around, lopping off undead heads left and right. It makes me want to see a revisionist write-up of American history with this Lincoln in place of the historically accurate one. Although, as the lights come back up and the panel discussion begins, Walker and Grahame-Smith do comment on the surprising accuracy of the film. I’ve outlined their responses below:
Walker commented on the Gothic tone of the film, which was strangely historically accurate (mentioning the unexplained death of Lincoln’s mother), calling it a “period Lincoln movie that just happens to have vampires in it.” In a great quote from Walker regarding playing Lincoln, he called it “badass; it’s an honor as an American. I want to know that my leaders are strong and can make tough decisions…and cut some heads off.”Bekmambetov, Grahame-Smith and Walker all talked about Burton’s support in wanting to take an aggressive, all-out approach on the film. Bekmambetov also said that while they changed some things from the book, the tone of the novel and the structure around Lincoln’s life is still present.Grahame-Smith did extensive research into Lincoln’s life and a lot of his book is in the movie. Some things they added were Adam, the Chief of all Vampires (Sewell); William Johnson (Mackie), who was an actual aide of Lincoln’s who traveled with him to Washington, D.C.; and the kick-ass train sequence mentioned above.On vampire comparisons, Grahame-Smith said the following: “I’m not a Twilight-hater, but I’ll say this…our vampires don’t sparkle.” He also guaranteed that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will be the only movie this summer to feature a president killing vampires.Bekmambetov also joked that it’s important to note they’re releasing this movie on the shortest night of the year. They worked hard to ground the vampires in reality, noting that the vampires could be seen outside since sunscreen was invented in the 19th century.When asked if President Obama would make a good vampire slayer, Grahame-Smith responded coyly that “he’s tall, he’s athletic” and could be okay. Walker had the best answer when asked what Obama’s weapon of choice against vampires would be: “Diplomacy. Maybe email.”
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter looks like an awesome action movie with a Gothic horror slant and a touch of history thrown in. Walker looks absolutely imposing as our 16th president and is entirely believable in the fight sequences. While it’s important not to take this movie too seriously (obviously), it could easily be the biggest surprise of the summer. I’ll say it again: gun-axe.
