Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Vincent D’Onofrio, Sam Neill, 50 Cent, Amy Ryan

Directed by: Mikael Hafstrom

Well, now that my area finally opened a new movie theater called, “Criterion Cinemas” (or Bowtie whichever), the Grand Opening was today. I decided to go to the movies to check out, “Escape Plan”. The new film starring Sly and Arnie! Here is my review:

Plot/synopsis: A structural-security authority named Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is an expert on escaping from the highest security prisons. He can easily escape from any prison in the world. So to stop other prisoners from having the potential to escape, Ray must build and design an escape-proof prison himself. However, things go wrong — Ray is framed and incarcerated in his own prison that he designed himself. The prison he designed is a futuristic prison with glass walls and the guards are all dressed in black and masked. Ray needs to escape his own prison that he built and find who ever put him in there. 

Sly is no stranger to starring in prison films. As a matter of fact, he starred in a prison film called, “Lock Up” (released in 1989). This is a whole different prison film. This new film, “Escape Plan”, has gotten mixed reviews but that’s typical with Sly Stallone movies. Pretty much all of his movies over the years have gotten mixed reviews from critics and movie fans.

What a lot of people are saying is that they are saying that the action in this movie is not as fun. I don’t know if they saw the same movie I saw but I thought the action was fine. There were some pretty entertaining fights, gun shooting and explosions; however, this movie concentrated on the story the most. It was way more than an action movie. When Arnold and Sly stars in a movie together, everybody would immediately think that the movie will be violent w/graphic scenes. The violence in this movie wasn’t graphic and disturbing but I think it wasn’t meant to be. I think the reason people are disappointed with this film is that they expected this film to be an epic action movie knowing that Sly and Arnold are in it together ’cause that’s what they were known for over the years. After I saw the film… I immediately thought that this movie is a mystery/suspense kind of film. It was more of a “whodunit” kind of thing. What this movie is basically about is “who” put Ray Breslin in his own prison that he built himself.

What I liked about this film also is that it had a bit of an 80’s throwback. It had an old school feeling to it. The visuals of the new prison Ray built were pretty impressive and interesting. Something different.

I was also surprised by the casting. I was surprised to see Vincent D’Onofrio as you all would know him from “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”… and Vincent did a real good job in this film. I thought Jim Caviezel made an awesome badguy as he played the prison’s warden. Jim played an excellent badguy that you really wanted to hate. Sam Neill killed it as well even though he had a smaller role, he played the prison’s doctor.

Most importantly, this movie was all about Sly and Arnold. Finally, YES, FINALLY, after all these years teaming up in a big movie together. I like these two being the main co-stars on the big screen. They have so much chemistry together and they work-well together so I really hope they do a lot more films playing the leading role like this. As usual, this film makes them look like tough guys. Arnold with his usual machine guns and funny one-liners… Arnie had a funny one-liner in this film that had me crackin’ up, I don’t want to spoil it. You’ll hear him say it toward the end of the film. Like usual while Arnie likes violence and action… he wants his characters to be funny and comedic like they always are. Sly and Arnold never starred in movies together in the past ’cause I guess they didn’t get along at first… Sly confirmed it himself on Letterman the other night. It’s about time, and this was long overdue!

I thought “Escape Plan” was a very fun and exciting movie. It was pretty good. I liked it!

I’ll give it a two thumbs up.

Kev

Yes, I do have plans in seeing “Escape Plan” this weekend when that new movie theater open in downtown Saratoga Springs. I’m planning on seeing it this coming Friday. This is Arnold and Sly’s first big movie together. Well, Arnie was in the first two Expendables movies with Sly but they were just cameo roles for Arnie, though. Arnold is pretty much in the leading role in this one along with Sly. This movie tells a story about a man who builds his own prison which Sly plays and he gets trapped into his own prison that he built — he must escape it himself. The plot actually sounds kind of interesting!

As some of you know, I’m a huge fan of both Arnold and Sly… can’t wait to see them both together.

It’s been long overdue for them to star in movies together. Arnold and Sly may have been friends for years — their friendship go way back in the 80’s but the reason they haven’t starred in movies together in the past is because they were both worried about their egos getting in the way. Now, they feel it’s a good time to star in movies together and I agree. These guys are getting old and you can only live once so might as well go for it!

Can’t wait to see this flick!

I saw Sly’s last movie, “Bullet To The Head” for DVD rental and it wasn’t all that special so hopefully this film will be a lot better. Best of all, this film has Jim Caviezel in it and that guy is a great actor!

The two new movie theaters will open soon and it will be great to start going to the movies again as I miss it. Yes, going to the movies is one of my favorite things to do. I haven’t been to the movies since I’ve seen “Man of Steel”.

There are other good movies out that I want to see. I want to see: “Gravity”, “Captain Phillips”, “Machete Kills”, and the new “Carrie” film. I plan to see them all but one at a time. “Gravity” will be the next movie I’ll see after “Escape Plan”. I got some catching up to do!

Kev