Escape Plan

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Escape Plan draws our attention with an intriguing idea for its premise and two of Hollywood's most cemented action stars leading its credits. Once it has you, you probably won't be so eager to stay. Aside from some pretty cool action scenes, good production design, and a few laughs from its unintentionally cheesy dialogue, Escape Plan has nothing to distinguish itself from or out-do other action movies.

Sylvester Stallone stars as Ray Breslin, a former lawyer turned inmate-for-hire. He hires himself out to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (I just looked it up. It's actually a real thing.), testing the security of their penitentiaries by seeing how quickly he can break out. The CIA approaches Ray with a $5 million offer to test their off the books, high-security prison at an undisclosed location.

When he arrives at the prison, "The Tomb," Ray sees brutal guards, complete prisoner surveillance, and, all in all, a job he might not be able to complete. Fearing he might not make it out of this one, Ray gives the warden his evacuation code, which is used to let him out of his duties. The warden pays no heed, telling Ray he's been paid to keep him there permanently.

Expecting eventual defeat, Ray finds assistance when he teams up with fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The two plot to find their way out by discovering their location and calling in favors from the outside with the help of their infirmary's one and only doctor.

No aspect of this movie ever goes above the realm of "good," and almost everything else lingers on "okay," or even flat-out "bad." For example, the production design was good, Stallone and Schwarzenegger were somewhere between "good" and "okay" in their performances, and when we get to the writing and entertainment value, that's where we start treading in flat-out "bad" territory.

Although Escape Plan isn't a terrible movie, it's certainly not great, or even good for that matter. Oftentimes, it's boring, and it even contains several plot holes and loose ends. It tries to convey a "good-time at the movies" feel, but maintains too dark and dramatic of an atmosphere. As a result, it fails as both a drama and an action-comedy. The plot was promising, but at the end of the day, a nice idea for the plot isn't going to fill the theater. Escape Plan is simply a 110-minute plateau of slightly below average.

Rating: 2/5