"No Escape" is a mindless wilderness survival picture crossed with the prison-escape genre, set in the future and dressed up to look like the "Mad Max" movies, which made an international star of Mel Gibson.

But in addition to Gibson's charisma, the "Mad Max" pictures also had an incredible sense of style, both in terms of dressing and action, with stunts that still are nothing short of amazing.

"No Escape," however, is just a B-movie with a big-budget look, though without any particularly notable elements.

Ray Liotta, in a change-of-pace role that seems more suited to the likes of Stallone or Schwarz-en-eg-ger, plays an emotionless tough guy, a military veteran who killed his commanding officer. He has escaped from two high-security prisons and, as the film opens, he is being transported to an international top-security facility, where computers in the walls hear the prisoners' thoughts.

And nearby is a remote jungle island called Absolom, where the sadistic warden (Michael Lerner) illegally places his most troublesome inmates. There, two factions have developed, the Insiders, a group of peaceful farmers who have forged their own benign community, and the Outsiders, a group of crazed savages who seem bent on destroying the Insiders.

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The Insiders are led by a kindly old surgeon, played by Lance Henriksen, who more often plays the villains in movies like this. The Outsiders are led by zany Stuart Wilson, who cracks one-liners and sings Christmas carols as he guts his enemies, proving that he's seen Alan Rickman's one-of-a-kind bad guy in "Die Hard" a few too many times.

Liotta does manage to give the film a more rooted presence than it might have if he weren't around, but there's only so much acting you can inject into a series of big scenes that give emphasis to violence and explosions. The mentality is, "Why just have a burning arrow hit someone in the chest when you can have it go into his open mouth?" (Ernie Hudson also tries in vain to lend a little class to the proceedings, as Henriksen's right-hand man.)

First-time screenwriters Michael Gaylin and Joel Gross have seen a lot of other movies for inspiration, and director Martin Campbell ("Criminal Law," "Defense-less") shows a flair for big action sequences with lots of extras - but it's apparent he has also seen too many other, better films. And none of them help the actors lend any depth to the obvious stereotypes at work here.

"No Escape" is rated R for violence, gore, profanity, vulgarity and some brief nudity.

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