The first five minutes of Lockout get punched

FilmDistrict and EuropaCorp have released a five-minute clip of the upcoming sci-fi prison break film Lockout.

The overture of the film introduces us to our hero, and the sort of problems he apparently gets himself embroiled in. The scene is a covert mission gone very bad, which Guy Pearce’s character, Snow, is being grilled about in some kind of warehouse-sized interrogation room. It gives us a good sense of the kind-of roguish anti-hero we’re going to get here, a sensible pairing with the too-smart-for-her-own-good damsel in distress, the president’s daughter, played by Maggie Grace.

In Lockout, Pearce plays a man wrongfully accused of espionage against the United States, who has been given a chance at freedom if he will undergo a special ops mission for the government.

The president’s daughter, played by Grace, has been trapped on an orbiting penal colony, which is currently under the control of the inmates. The protagonist has to infiltrate the prison, rescue the girl, and get back out again.

There will clearly be lots of tense moments with evil dudes to outwit and out-punch, but beyond that, I still don’t think much of the plot. This will be one to see for the effects and choreography only, from the looks of it. No 3D version has been announced so far, which is no great loss, at least in my opinion. 

The official synopsis is thus:

Starring Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace and set in the near future, LOCKOUT follows a falsely convicted ex-government agent (Pearce), whose one chance at obtaining freedom lies in the dangerous mission of rescuing the President’s daughter (Grace) from rioting convicts at an outer space maximum security prison.

Here’s the theatrical trailer, which gives us some samples of the great action sequences and special space effects in the film, for reference:

Lockout breaks into theaters on April 13, 2012.