Lockout (2012)

   This movie had no right being as good as it was, considering that it's basically Escape from L.A. in space.  It was hilarious, well-paced, and entertaining from start to finish.  This is a great example of something being more than the sum of its parts.

Snow (Guy Pearce) is a former CIA operative wrongly accused of treason and espionage.  He is bounced through a kangaroo court and sentenced to 30 years in stasis on the newly launched space prison MS-1.  But, there is an option presented to him by his "good cop" (Lennie James) which is to rescue the President's daughter (Maggie Grace) who has been taken hostage during a humanitarian mission gone horribly wrong. 

I have never liked Guy Pearce in any role I have seen him in, except for his minor spot in The Hurt Locker, but this movie single-handedly reversed that opinion.  Finally, we have returned to the wise-cracking action hero of yesteryear, a character less concerned with factual accuracy than he is with witty one-liners.  I tend to like Luc Besson movies with the notable exception of La Femme Nikita but, as much as I wanted to like Colombiana, it was lacking that certain something.  Lockout fills the void beautifully and will be making a reappearance on my shelf as a blu-ray sometime in the future.