I watched the Luc Besson (Fifth Element, Leon) produced sci-fi actioner "Lockout". It stars Guy Pearce who - unbelievably - actually seems to be having fun starring as some sort of James Bond in space*.

Based on a true story, he's tasked with rescuing the president's daughter from a space prison which has been overrun by the inmates who are led by a couple of Scottish psychopaths typical Scots.

It suffers some bad cgi early on in the film, but stick with it because by the end, the cgi is very good indeed! I never understand why that happens in films, maybe there were 2 different effects teams involved with the film and the ones dealing with the chase scene early on were completely out of their depth.

Other than that, it is no classic but is a lot of fun. I can think of worse ways to spend an hour and a half. Oh, and if you are American, be sure not to watch the heavily cut PG-13 version. Cutting down films aimed at adults is another reason why I think cinemas are doomed. Why pay through the nose to see it in the cinema when you will only get to watch it properly at home in a few months time? The fact that the (also Besson-produced) Taken 2 hit box office gold means that this depressing trend looks to be here to stay.

I'm thankful that while it bombed financially Dredd did not share a similar fate. Sadly, I could see this being the way forward for future instalments though.

Anyway, in summary: fun, mindless entertainment!

*Hang on, "James Bond in space" was Moonraker and that was appalling!

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Effects production is indeed usually spread around through different firms. The commentary on Starship Troopers always pointed out who did what scene, I think there was an in-house team plus about 3 others including Industrial Light & Magic and "Banned from the Ranch". The latter is a company formed by ILM employees, apparently they were guilty of a misdemeanour involving George Lucas's office during a party at Skywalker Ranch
http://scottaross.com/2011/05/08/banned-from-the-ranch/

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Haha! Yeah, as a fan of the Starship Troopers commentary "real-digital-digital-real-real-digital-real" I was aware of that. I reiterate my earlier plea for people to listen to that comentary - it's funny stuff!

I don't get why film companies do things like that. You'd think by sticking with one company you'd get a similar level of outcome rather than in some instances quite mismatched levels of effects. Anyway, I'm no expert, so what do I know?!

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Well being reliant on a single company is a big risk, and anyway they probably don't have the capacity. You can give one company 10 things to do, or you can split them between 4 companies and greatly reduce the overall lead time because they will work on them in parallel.

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Fifth Element ! Fifth Element. Fifth Element !? Where do i find space in my list for the 5th Element...??

"Big, bada boom!" (and THAT dress...)

Yeah, I loved it as well until Chris Tucker happened. I'm sorry to say that pretty much ruined the film for me. I found myself cringing every time his character was on-screen.

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Ha ! That's one of my favorite scenes - tucker is obviously having a riot turning it up to eleventyone. I love the way bruce willis manages to play it absolutely straight throughout as the whole film goes from mad to just plain bonkers !

Each to their own my friend, each to their own!

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Watched Apollo 18. It's the Blair Witch Project in space, and therefore a load of old toss. Don't waste your time on it!

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12 Monkeys is a definite. Utterly weird and Brad Pitt is brilliant (I know, it's BRAD PITT but he really is an effective actor).
Dark City is great.
Blade Runner is still unmatched in it's scope IMO.
Robocop! As campy as it comes, but it was such a fun movie to watch. Although with Detroit going bankrupt it won't take much for it to become science fact.
Serenity - if for no other reason that it's a movie that was made out of sheer willpower from a write-in campaign.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

That and Summer Glau

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Saw Pacific Rim over the weekend.

Visually stunning, particularly the water was extraordinarily realistic.

Did anyone else feel like they forgot to set aside any of the $120M or whatever for a plot though? I mean, yes it's a kaiju film, so the plot must contain:
1) monster(s) attack city(s)
2) humans fight back
3) repeat 1-2 n+1 times*
4) humans drive off monsters
But no one seemed to want to expand on that.

Don't get me wrong, it's great for the action and eye candy it's intended to be, but in some ways it seemed like Transformers without all the plot development.

Edit: Ron Perlman is still a hoss though.

*n is the number of times you really want or need to see steps 1-2

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I'm assuming that is a statement dripping with sarcasm! Those films may have been long, but I don't remember any story. Decepticons wanting to destroy Earth, Erotobots wanting to groom humans doesn't count as story, that's merely character motivation.

I cannot express how much I loathe the Transformers films. It sounds like I should avoid Prosthetic Limb as well. That's a shame because I usually enjoy Del Toro's work. It's been announced that he's writing the sequel, hopefully he'll spend some more time on the script than it sounds like he did with the first one!

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Kaylee surely?