Lock Out - 2.5 / 5
The good:
- it's not as close to "'Escape from New York' in space" as I thought it'd be
- Guy Pearce had a lot of fun playing a character that's so badass that every sentence out of his mouth is a funny snide remark
- a bit less predictable than I'd feared
The bad:
- it's not as close to "'Escape from New York' in space" as I thought it'd be
- Guy Pearce's character is TOO badass - it'd be good if he was serious once in a while, it can't just ALWAYS be puns
- a lot more predictable than I'd hoped
- the first action sequence has horrible HORRIBLE visual effects - the rest is ok, though
Battleship - 3 / 5
Surprisingly good fun, and contrary to what Michael Bay would've done, director Peter Berg keeps the editing frenzy under control so you can actually SEE what's going on.
Granted, the film is highly predictable, and turning your brain off is a prerequisite, but it was some good old-fashioned fun reminiscent of "'Independence Day' at sea".
Unfortunately, Liam Neeson has far too small of a role, and the charisma-less Taylor Kitsch far too big of a role, but you can't really fault an action movie that features
multiple AC/DC songs on its soundtrack.
Speaking of the Battleship soundtrack: composer Steve Jablonsky (who also did the Transformers movies) made an EXACT copy of his Transformers: Dark of the Moon soundtrack, which in turn was a mix between the soundtracks of the first two Transformers films and Daft Punk's Tron Legacy.
But then again, that Tron Legacy soundtrack was so insanely cool that I don't mind that everybody and their dog are copying it.
