Escape Plan hits Blu-ray and DVD on February 4th from Summit Entertainment.
Read our own Victor Pryor’s theatrical review of the film here.
Look, I’m not going to sit here and try to tell you that Escape Plan is a good movie.
But there is a certain amount of joy that comes from watching any movie that features this in it:
Escape Plan is that action movie dream which has finally become reality: the film with both “Stallone” and “Schwarzenegger” emblazoned over the title card. And while it took until both men were in their late 60s for this milestone to happen, happen it did. And you know what? The pairing is about as good as you could ask for from dudes (nay, heroes of the silver screen) this age. No, you don’t get a Predator-style handshake/muscle-gasm. But you get a whole mess of funny back and forth barbs that actually land (unlike, say, every single painful joke Arnold attempts in The Expendables 2); and some pretty fun action beats too.
Interestingly, when watching the bonus features of Escape Plan, it seems that everyone involved believes they are making an intelligent thriller. Some kind of thinking man’s thrill ride. Director Mikael Hafstrom, while performing a perfectly competent service as the film’s director, is praised by stars and producers as bringing a real artistic center that, frankly, I am just not seeing. Stallone is talking about the film like something we’ve never seen before. As though Escape Plan is this kernel of a new idea amidst a sea of re-treads.
What is fascinating about this is that, in reality, one of Escape Plan’s strengths as a piece of entertainment is that it seems to know exactly what it is: a certifiably mentally handicapped action/comedy with a killer ensemble cast that happens to include the two biggest names in action movie history and will therefore live on forever; long past other action films of a similar quality that will be summarily forgotten. The cast mostly seem to be in on the tone of the project. Stallone and Schwarzenegger genuinely seem to be having a great time. Jim Caviezel as the evil warden of “The Tomb” is hilarious and menacing — I just loved him. Then throw in Sam Neill as a humorously-conflicted-and-integral-to-the-plot prison doctor with a guilty conscience, Amy Ryan (?) as Stallone’s partner in his professional jail-breaking business, 50 Cent as Stallone’s “techno-thug” (50 Cent should never ever ever act), and even Vinnie Jones and Vincent D’Onofrio show up in this bad boy too.
Besides the cast, Escape Plan has even more going for it, none of which is intelligent or particularly original, dramatic, or adult (as the special features attempt to convince us). For one thing, Escape Plan is rated good and R. In an era where our Robocop remakes are coming out as PG-13 affairs, I’m almost ready to say that simply achieving an R-rating on a film like Escape Plan might actually be a sign of a certain level of quality. What the R-rating tells us is important. For one thing, the creative team seems to be telling us “Hey, we get it. We’ve got these stars, and we’re not going to waste them. You’ll see them blow things up real good.” As a matter of fact, in the wonderfully energetic opening sequence introducing us to Stallone’s Ray Breslin character, we see him brutally beat down some prison inmates and get a violently-shouted “F bomb” before the title card slams onto the screen. It is enough to make a guy cheer. Another thing this R-rating tells us is that, while the studio DOES want to give us what we want, violence-and-language-wise, they also weren’t going to drop a billion dollars on this project. An R-rating for a movie like this came with a caveat that they couldn’t spend TOO much money. And therefore, I’m even more sold on the thing. Great! I get old school thrills and don’t have to stress too hard about the film not making back it’s budget. Because it probably hasn’t done that yet. But here’s the thing: some day it will. It didn’t cost TOO much, and since it is THE Stallone/Schwarzenegger team up movie, it’ll always have a novelty factor into all eternity. But enough about the rating. That is one element of fun, on top of the cast which seem to know what they are doing.
There’s so much more to love here… like… well…
Actually nope. That is about it. The cast, the banter, the several cheer-worthy action beats like the time Arnold full-on suplexes Stallone, or the above clip, or the moment where Stallone catches a gun thrown to him mid-air by Arnold and then blows someone away… those are moments you watch a movie like Escape Plan for. And you GET them! The script is not good. The direction feels knowing but not special. The plotting gets a little muddled, but it all builds to a third act of such silly and violent bombast that you just have to smile. The more I think about Escape Plan, the more I like it. It side-steps the undeniable fact that it is dumb-as-rocks by providing you with an actual fun time at the movies. There’s not much brooding. There’s a whole lot of coasting on the charm and charisma of its aging stars. And I lapped it all up gladly.
The Package
As I mentioned above, the bonus features are humorous in that they seem to be selling an entirely different movie than the Escape Plan that I saw. I guess you can’t have the star or director getting on camera and saying “You know what, our movie is dumb as hell, so we just swung for the rafters to make it as fun as possible in spite of itself.”
And as far as sound and picture quality go… sure. Seemed pretty good to me. I guess. Escape Plan is mid-budget, old-school, and focused on fun. I’m not hung up on the visuals beyond the aging mugs of our lunk-ish superheroes of cinema.
Audio Commentary with Director Mikael Hafstrom and Co-Writer Miles Chapman: Didn’t listen to it. You know why? No Stallone or Schwarzenegger, who are the reasons you watch this movie.
Executing The Plan: The Making Of Escape Plan: In which the cast and crew describe the making of some movie which in no way resembles this one.
Maximum Security: The Real-Life Tomb Featurette: Now, this here featurette is pretty spectacular because it goes into detail about what real maximum security prisons are like, and regularly features an expert who blatantly tears apart all the conceits found in Escape Plan as un-realistic and silly. The guy isn’t rude, but he systematically points out things from the movie and explains why they would never be like that in a real prison. It is interesting and ballsy to have something like this show up on your blu-ray. A genuinely interesting and confident little bonus.
Clash Of The Titans Featurette: Makes sense. Since the only selling point of this movie is the Stallone/Arnold pairing… have a special feature that highlights it. I really liked listening to these guys talk about the inevitability of their screen pairing, their careers that lead up to this, and the mandatory insertion of a fist fight between their characters simply because the fans would want it. Which we did. And then we got Arnold suplexing Stallone and our geek hearts soared.
Deleted Scenes: Already forgot them.
If you are a rabid Stallone or Schwarzenegger fan like I am… you’ve already seen this movie. You don’t need me to convince you. If you are a nominal fan and have winced through some of these guys’ latest offerings, I’m going to tell you that Escape Plan walks the tight rope nicely and you won’t be sad you rented this thing. If you can’t stand these guys and think their prime was passed over a decade ago… this movie literally offers you absolutely nothing, but I urge you to re-consider that erroneous stance of yours.
And I’m Out.