Questionable plotting mars comebacking action icons’ costarrer

STALLONE AND SCHWARZENEGGER. Can still launch into their fight scenes with convincing, slam-bang brio.

Despite some colleagues’ well-meant warning that we could be in for a big disappointment, we made it a point last week to catch “Escape Plan,” the comeback project especially conceptualized for senior action icons, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We wanted to see if, after the passage of some years, they still had the mature “mojo” to dynamically topbill a slam-bang actioner—without periodically having to call for an ambulance in the course of its shooting process!

Well, the good news is that, while both action stars have gained weight, they can still launch into their fight scenes with convincing, slam-bang brio.

True, Stallone looks the worse for wear with his now even more craggy and wattled facial features—but, good looks have never been his strong suit, so that’s ultimately no big deal. What really compromises the effectivity of the two senior action leads’ comeback costarrer is its occasionally questionable plotting.

Key plot premise

At first, we find ourselves being intrigued by its key plot premise: Stallone is presented as an expert “tester” of prisons’ security systems, who’s paid millions of dollars to get himself incarcerated—and then breaking out of the most tightly guarded jails in the world.

All too soon, however, our involvement is marred by some improbable developments that come off as illogical or too good to be true.

Imagine, Stallone’s toughest assignment to date is to break out of a top-secret facility for political prisoners or terrorists that has glass walls and numerous security cameras—and yet, he is still able to frustrate his jailers’ best efforts—and breaks free!

Makeshift contraption

In one particularly dubious escape sequence, Stallone’s character is able to make the metal bolts of his cell’s flooring “pop out” by heating them up with the use of a makeshift contraption he’s surreptitiously created under the watchful eyes of his captors! Other improbable scenes have him escaping death by a split-second or millimeter—even if his foes outnumber and outgun him, 20 to one!

For his part, Schwarzenegger is less physically active in this flick, but his character’s hold on viewers is the “mystery” surrounding his real identity. It all gets cleared up in the end, and the final revelation provides the story with the “exclamation point” it needs to satisfying peak.

On the whole, however, it must be observed that Stallone makes a stronger impact in this actioner than his similarly mature co-star.

This is especially true as the film’s final sequence unfolds in particularly cliffhanger fashion, with Stallone presumed dead and drowned—until he’s seen escaping a big ship by hanging on to a helicopter’s rescue ladder!

—Only in the movies? You bet!