Movie Breakdown: Escape Plan

People are doing traditional-style reviews all over the web, so we decided to try something different.  In each “breakdown” we’ll take a look at what a film’s marketing lead us to believe, how the movie actually played, and then what we learned from it all.  Read on!

The Impression:

Action icons Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger team up so that they can escape an inescapable prison.

The Reality:

Escape Plan turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  Granted, the movie certainly exists largely as an excuse to get the charisma-loaded combo of Stallone and Schwarzenegger onto one screen, but I found it to be an inspired throwback to the sort of concept-driven action films that dominated the 80s and early 90s.  There’s also more brains than brawn at play in it, which I thought was sort of refreshing.

If you grew up loving a lot of the movies that these guys used to star in, then Escape Plan is worth at least a matinee.

The Lesson:

There’s nothing wrong with going old school.