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Rating: Preamble: to fully appreciate this film, you must never think of terms like credibility and even less plausibility. Never.
Be like children affected by a syndrome, which I don't know but certainly exists, that makes you unable to distinguish between the real and the unreal, between the possible and the impossible.
That said.
Stallone's job is to break out of prison. Exactly. He gets himself thrown into maximum-security prisons, escapes with nonchalance, writes books (only one so far, truthfully) about how much maximum-security prisons suck and how to improve them, gets free, goes back to prison, and so on. He gets paid for this.
After yet another successful escape, with the help of 50 Cent with glasses and a blonde, Sly returns to base and finds the CIA there in the form of a hot chick who says 'a Sylvester, try out this little prison! The mega-galactic prison, run by private entities, and the private entities are worse than the public ones, a place made especially for the scum of the earth.' Sly says well I don't know, then they insinuate he doesn't have the balls, so damn it, let's go to prison!
As soon as he arrives, he realizes things are bad. They told him: your friend is the director and just say the security code. After twenty minutes, being the great professional that he is, he can't take it anymore and says you know what? I'm leaving. But surprise! The director's name isn't such-and-such but rather so-and-so and says I don't know shit. Code? What code? You're a detainee and here you'll stay, like the others. And now? And now it's tough luck.
The prison presents itself as fairly postmodern, but it also respects the conventions: on the one hand, in the glass cells, under the camera's eye, nothing is allowed, on the other hand, the recreation time, although indoors, allows for conversations and brawls among benches, tables, and large concrete walls.
In short, a nasty place. Right during the courtyard walk, Schwarzenegger shows up. None other than. It's not quite clear who he is, what he did, half-terrorist, half-who knows, the fact is the infamous director would like to know where Schwarzy's free-roaming friend is, and Arnold, silent, proves to be tough and right away desperately seeks Stallone's friendship, who in the end says oh well, let's share this plan, let's escape together.
Various punches, so many absurd things, more or less successful attempts at humor, a thousand unnecessary but also a thousand very cool plot twists (above all: where is this prison located? I won’t reveal because it’s cool) and there you go towards a crappy ending where you say huh? And you didn’t quite get everything and it’s not your fault.
However.
However, many really interesting things, starting from the idea of the setting, where the baddest and most dangerous people in the world are all there. The scum. Indeed, a bunch of Arabs. And in the end, seeing Schwarzenegger and Stallone trying to escape together and thanks to the muscular Muslim of the moment, which I mean: if he's there, he must be from ISIS or Al Qaeda or something like that, right? Well, I liked that image.
Plus, the film keeps you glued, you’re engaged, in the end, you overlook everything (except the ending) and enjoy it. Let's admit it, 50 million well spent.
Sure, maybe they could have given 10 to Carpenter and made a good film.
And the last sentence is completely gratuitous but I really like Carpenter and this film could have been a Carpenter-esque thing if you think about it.
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