Escape Plan {Movie Review}

When my friend Dred invited me to watch Escape Plan, I had no idea what it was and wasn’t sure I wanted to watch it when she said it starred Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are known for hard core action films. I loved Arnold, with Terminator 2 being our most watched VHS tape in our house when I was a kid, but I don’t really like hard core action films as much as I used to anymore.

I do make exceptions, however, for those with interesting plots, and this one did, as I found out when I read the below synopsis on IMDB:

Ray Breslin is a man who has devoted his life to making prisons inescapable by going into a prison as an inmate and trying to see if he can break out. And he has done a good job so far. A woman who says she works for the CIA approaches Ray and says that a new maximum security prison where the worst criminals are to be incarcerated, is about to be launched. So she wants him to go and make sure no one can get out. He agrees. So they make the necessary preps by telling Ray who the warden is and they give him a code that the warden will know that he’s not a convict, and they plant him with a tracer. But when he’s picked up, the ones who pick him up remove the tracer. When he arrives at the prison, he discovers that the warden is different from the one he was told and when he tells him the code, he claims that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He realizes that someone doesn’t want him to get out. He then tries to find a way out but he needs help. Another prisoner, Rottmeyer becomes friendly with him. And they decide to work together to get out. But it won’t be easy.

The girl on the left is my avatar and the one on the right is Dred’s, but the funny thing is in real life, we did the reverse. Dred ate the popcorn (I don’t like popcorn all that much, actually) while I covered my eyes with my hands during the really bloody scenes. Can’t stand blood and gore, I once fainted when I got my blood drawn, that’s how badly I can’t handle it.

But my verdict of the movie? It was unexpectedly hilarious. The entire cinema was cracking up all throughout the film! I certainly did NOT see that coming! Arnold’s character made us laugh the most, he plays a completely different person from most of his other roles here, and towards the second half of the film, we were laughing at pretty much anything he did, even at scenes that weren’t even supposed to be funny, I think.

The movie may not have an award-worthy plot or script or acting and I was really bothered by how Sylvester speaks – it’s like he has marble in his mouth or something – but the movie entertained me overall. So if you’re looking for a light or not too hard core action flick (whatever that means), check this one out.