Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 48% (Critics) / 66% (Audience)
Directed By: Mikael Håfström
Written By: Miles Chapman and Jason Keller
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Amy Ryan, Vincent D’Onofrio and Jim Caviezel
Studio: Summit Entertainment

Synopsis:When a structural-security authority finds himself set up and incarcerated in the world’s most secret and secure prison, he has to use his skills to escape with help from the inside. (Source)

The Good:
Stallone and Schwarzenegger have a really cool buddy vibe that makes me pretty bummed that the two of them could never set aside their egos and make a movie together in their action hero primes. They played off of one another very naturally and the little jokes, which would have been totally cringe inducing if uttered by anyone else, actually made me laugh more than once. And for two grandpaws they looked pretty damn convincing in their action scenes.
Jim Caviezel deserves props too for his lizard like performance as the warden. Anyone who watches Caviezel’s CBS show PERSON OF INTEREST will recognize that he was doing a spot on impersonation of his co-star Michael Emerson’s Finch if that character were to go to the dark side.

The Bad:
This script is so dumb. I mean just mind-numbingly stupid with people doing things for flimsy reasons and goofy twists that a blind man could have seen coming a mile away.

The Ugly
A lot of the supporting cast was under developed in this movie but in the case of Sam Neill it was criminally so. I can only assume that there was much more done with his character that ended up on the cutting room floor because, as presented in the movie, his role could have been filled by a kid straight out of the drama program at any community college in the country.

Final Verdict: ESCAPE PLAN is predictable, outlandish and overblown action fluff but delivers on the one thing that is most important: it is really fun. The two grizzled action stars play off of one another wonderfully and Caviezel makes a nicely slippery villain. Even if the rest of the cast gets short shrift the overall product delivers enough mindless fun to make it a success.

Grade: B