ESCAPE PLAN

What do you get if you combine Rocky, Terminator and episodes of MacGyver? A surprisingly muted film that seems to be playing it safe is what you get. Though they teamed up before in The Expendables 2, this is the first film where Stallone and Schwarzenegger have teamed up properly as an action duo. As usual let’s start with what works; the buddy cop banter between the two action veterans is really enjoyable . Shwarz…… – Arnold- in particular looks like he’s having a good time and channelling the tongue-in-cheek humour that permeated his classic films of the eighties. The deadpan humour matches well with Stallone’s straight-man delivery and gives the film such much needed humour (more on that later). Another enjoyable element of the film is the A-team/MacGyver-like ways our heroes escape from their situation. Whenever an obstacle presents itself ,seeing them come up with a solution ,however ridiculous ,is always fun. What holds the film back is its very reserved ‘play it safe’ style that does not really live up to having two of cinemas biggest action stars in the same place. Given this you would expect something like Terminator meets Rocky, instead the action feels like an average Stephen Segal movie. Towards the end the film begins to degenerate into bland gunfights and fails to use any of these fights as effective set pieces . Even the final confrontation between Stallone and the tormenting head guard (played by football hard Vinnie Jones) feels flat and rather dull Should the two team up again we can only hope a stronger script will do them better justice. FINAL VERDICT 6/10 Disappointing for what could have been a really good action movie icon team up.