Based on Grant Chastain’s graphic novel, Corrective Measures is an unabashed splicing of X-Men and Suicide Squad. Something so derivative really shouldn’t work, yet its setting, within the confines of San Tiburon – a maximum-security prison for inmates with superpowers – corrals the story into something close to a brassily characterised ensemble drama, while restricting the action to occasional raucous outbreaks. Presumably done for budget reasons, it winds up a more distinctive film than it otherwise might be, and is presided over by Michael Rooker – inexplicably wearing a straw boater throughout – as the arrogant and conniving Warden Devlin.
We enter San Tiburon along with Payback (Dan Payne), a Bible-bashing meathead whose mission in life is hunting down “enhanced humans”; superpowered genetic freaks who are the by-product of a global cataclysm called the Pulse. Also on the jailbird express is Diego (Brennan Meija), a doe-eyed empath who Gordon (Tom Cavanagh), a one-time electricity-throwing mutant known as the Conductor, takes under his wing. All of the prisoners have their abilities curtailed by inhibitors worn on their legs – just as well when the likes of the Lobe (Bruce Willis), an adept capable of controlling minds, are also on the block.
