Main cast: Michael Rooker (Overseer Warden Devlin), Tom Cavanagh (Gordon Tweedy/Conductor), Brennan Mejia (Diego Diaz), Kevin Zegers (Captain Jason Brody), Dan Payne (Walter Anthony Locke/Payback), Hayley Sales (Dr Isabelle Josephs), Kat Ruston (Officer Liz Morales), Matthew Kevin Anderson (Danny Breeze), Daniel Cudmore (Diamond Jim), Malcolm Sparrow-Crawford (Neumann), Celia Aloma (Felicia Johnson), and Bruce Willis (Julius Loeb/The Lobe)
Director: Sean O’Reilly

Well, with all the climate change and what not happening, life as we know it in Corrective Measures is changing drastically. People are dying from all kinds of health issues, but on the flip side, people are also developing superpowers and becoming “enhanced humans”, thus giving rise to superheroes and super villains.

This brings us to San Tiburon, an “uber max” prison built specially to contain these super villains.

The whole thing begins with the arrival of two new inmates.

Diego Diaz is an empath, and that’s the extent of his powers, so yes, he may just be screwed both literally and figuratively unless the pretty boy finds a way to survive among the cutthroat villains in this place. He fortunately bumps into the affable “first generation super villain”, the electrically-charged Conductor, whose superpower seems to be mostly dumping exposition for the viewers and who takes Diego under his wing. He’s been in prison for 10 years, so he can show Diego a thing or two about keeping his head low.

Then there is Payback is a cocky vigilante that has taken down many enhanced humans in his quest for vengeance (dead daughter, the usual). He gives no effs about anyone in this place because he’s the ultimate chad.

Meanwhile, the staff are all ruthless and mean types led by Overseer Warden Devlin, and the other inmates consist of the likes of Diamond Jim, Payback’s archnemesis, and Bruce Willis in solitary confinement—that solitary confinement thing lets Mr Willis to film all his scenes in a day or two. Hey now, let’s not mock the poor guy, as he has cognitive issues so he was just making as many movies as he could before he couldn’t make any any more.

Mr Willis is the Loeb, a terrifying mind-reader and mind-controller that also has Devlin under his thumb. Of course, Devlin is dumb enough to think he has the upper hand, and with him retiring in just a bit over a month, he wants Loeb to hand over his billions to him or he’d have that baldy lobotomized.

I’m sure we can all see that this story will culminate in the inevitable inmates running the asylum trope. That’s right people, this is a prison movie with super-powered villains, but sadly minus the obligatory shower scenes with all those extras flashing their butt and what not.

Now, one good thing I can say about this one is that Michael Rooker is just being Michael Rooker, which means he’s the most entertaining person in the entire thing.

Dan Payne gets quite a lot of spotlight early on, but his character fades into the background for some reason shortly into the movie. Diego Diaz also has a similar fate, as this character ends up just being sort of there later in the movie and is completely unnecessary by the late third or so of the movie. Tom Cavanaugh is entertaining to watch, but again, his character just sort of stops being relevant after a while.

Bruce Willis’s role in this one is actually one of his bigger swan songs, but The Lobe is just sort of an island of his own in this movie, with little strong connections to other characters aside from those he is exploiting for his own advantage. His arc is predictable, and honestly, this arc would have made a solid short film without none of the rest of the stuff in this movie.

That’s the biggest issue that I have with this movie. It feels more like a pilot of a series instead of a movie in its own right. There is no strong focus. Characters have their arcs started, only to be abandoned shortly after. Is this a prison movie or an office politics one? Is it a thriller or an action movie? It’s hard to tell because this movie keeps switching courses like someone with ADD.

Oh, and people that are expecting this one to be more faithful to the graphic novels, I hope they brace themselves for that thing bearing the name of Jason Brody present in this film!

Also, the budget of this movie clearly isn’t much, so there aren’t many flashy CGI to distract me from the lack of focus and all the wasted characters in this thing.

I had high hopes for this one, despite it having the Tubi brand attached to it, mostly because I need an antidote to the current no-brain land that is the superhero movie landscape of the MCU and DCEU or whatever that is called now. Sadly, this one just isn’t a missed opportunity; it bloody well takes the wheel and drives itself straight off a cliff.