Disc of the Week (7/17/12)

Luc Besson has spent the better part of the last decade building quite a cinematic empire for himself; his company EuropaCorp has made a ton money creating cheap, simple action movies that the public has normally gobbled up. The big success story was 2008’s Taken, and for the most part this financial winning streak has continued, and even if a movie is a box office dud it doesn’t matter because it didn’t cost any money. One recent dud is the Guy Pearce thriller Lockout, in which he is sent to a space prison to rescue the President’s daughter when all the inmates start to run loose. It hardly made five bucks, but it got some reasonably kind reviews and this week it hits the DVD/Blu-ray shelves.

Even amid some of the positivity, Lockout was hurt by the fact that no one ever talked about it. For the most part, that included me. The only time I mentioned it was in a Review Roundup deal back in April. It’s not a particularly good film, but it’s a gloriously silly thriller with some of the worst CGI you’ve ever seen in a mainstream release. Somehow that only adds to the charm, and the whole thing is elevated by a mesmerizing Guy Pearce performance. I’m still not sure if he was enjoying himself or if he was painfully uninterested in the proceedings, but either way it only winds up helping the film. Lockout may not have been alluring enough to get huge crowds out to the theater, but it may prove to be a satisfying home viewing experience for years to come.

And now, more of this week’s releases:

-          Will Ferrell’s Spanish-language comedy Casa De Mi Padre didn’t make much noise when it was released in theaters, and it will be interesting to see if it finds a cult audience on DVD and Blu-ray.

-          I was in the minority on Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends with Kids, a romantic comedy that some liked but I found to be a drag that piled unearned development on top of unearned development.

-          I didn’t see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, even though it has perhaps the most mystifyingly bad title in movie history.

-          Some claimed Peter and Bobby Farrelly’s The Three Stooges wasn’t so bad. I didn’t see it, so I have no opinion on the matter.

Of course, you could always see a movie in the theaters this weekend. Too bad there’s nothing to get excited about…