It's Sly and Arnie, together at last in a big budget jailbeak actioner! Sly plays the world's greatest escape artist for maximum security prisons, getting paid the big bucks to break out of these futuristic pens to show the powers that be where security holes are. After an exciting opening where Sly breaks out of a prison in explosive style, he gets another "breakout" job opportunity that seems a little shady---and it is, as they drop him into a maximum security prison in an unknown area and separate him from his work team. No one knows where he is and the unknown BAD GUYS want to keep him there. So Sly is forced to hook up with fellow hardened prisoner Arnie, unravel the mystery, and break out. Trouble is, they find out the "prison" is actually a giant ship, drifting in an unknown sea! There's nowhere to escape to... Jim Caviezel (Jesus from THE PASSION) plays the evil warden with relish and there's plenty of prison fighting, waterboarding, daring escapes, and the usual shootouts and explosions at the end. We've seen Sly do this gig before in LOCK UP and TANGO AND CASH, but what the hell. Arnie and Sly are in fine form, having fun with their parts, and so does the audience. Could've used some more cool 80's style one-liners, but overall, a very satisfying watch. On the DVD extras, I saw where the producers gave themselves an extra pat on the back for finding the awesome main location at an abandoned facility where NASA used to make space shuttle engines, but they WERE NOT the first to do this. The classic Peter Fonda sequel to WESTWORLD called FUTUREWORLD also pulled this location trick, using an abandoned rocket facility as their main location in 1976! ESCAPE PLAN and FUTUREWORLD, no surprise, having a strikingly similar look. Pretty wild! Just wanted to set the record straight on that!
It's Sly and Arnie, together at last in a big budget jailbeak actioner! Sly plays the world's greatest escape artist for maximum security prisons, getting paid the big bucks to break out of these futuristic pens to show the powers that be where security holes are. After an exciting opening where Sly breaks out of a prison in explosive style, he gets another "breakout" job opportunity that seems a little shady---and it is, as they drop him into a maximum security prison in an unknown area and separate him from his work team. No one knows where he is and the unknown BAD GUYS want to keep him there. So Sly is forced to hook up with fellow hardened prisoner Arnie, unravel the mystery, and break out. Trouble is, they find out the "prison" is actually a giant ship, drifting in an unknown sea! There's nowhere to escape to... Jim Caviezel (Jesus from THE PASSION) plays the evil warden with relish and there's plenty of prison fighting, waterboarding, daring escapes, and the usual shootouts and explosions at the end. We've seen Sly do this gig before in LOCK UP and TANGO AND CASH, but what the hell. Arnie and Sly are in fine form, having fun with their parts, and so does the audience. Could've used some more cool 80's style one-liners, but overall, a very satisfying watch. On the DVD extras, I saw where the producers gave themselves an extra pat on the back for finding the awesome main location at an abandoned facility where NASA used to make space shuttle engines, but they WERE NOT the first to do this. The classic Peter Fonda sequel to WESTWORLD called FUTUREWORLD also pulled this location trick, using an abandoned rocket facility as their main location in 1976! ESCAPE PLAN and FUTUREWORLD, no surprise, having a strikingly similar look. Pretty wild! Just wanted to set the record straight on that!
