2013: Rescate en L.A.

Sure, Snake Plissken is a relic from the ultra-macho 80s action craze. Sure, Carpenter's use of effects is often obvious (though occasionally brilliant). Sure, the film is nothing but a slab of highly fragrant cheese, but it's FUN cheese. It's unapologetic cheese. It's the extra $1.50 of gooey, greasy, slimey mozza that you throw onto your 16" meat-lover's... sure, it's excessive--maybe even unhealthy--but it makes the pizza.

Escape From L.A. is pure, unabashed, old-fashioned fun. It's one of those movies that everyone claims they hate, but they really love in that deep place, way down in their mind, where belching contests are still fun. It doesn't pretend to be anything more than entertainment--and it's good entertainment at that. When I first saw the trailers for this film, I groaned. Kurt Russell's faux-Eastwood-does-pirate routine rubbed me the wrong way, and I was unfamiliar with John Carpenter's work. After having seen the original Escape, Halloween, The Fog, Vampires, The Thing and especially Big Trouble In Little China I know that Carpenter is interested in one thing: giving his audience an escape from reality, and this film is perfect for that. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and it takes a lot of suspension of disbelief, but in to paraphrase Roger Ebert: Who can hate a film where Kurt Russell and a transsexual Pam Grier swoop from the sky in hang-gliders firing automatic weapons at an amusement park compound?

Add to the mix a delightful turn by Steve Buscemi and an amusing (albeit unrecognizable) cameo by Bruce "Don't Call Me Ash" Campbell, and you have a really fun, really dumb, really cool MOVIE!

Recommended for the 10 year old boy in all of us.

Now "Escape from New York" is a darker, grim action thriller that suits the environment where the story takes place. When one thinks of New York, you think of a dark, seedy, big, bad city. This is not what comes to mind when one thinks of L.A. You would think sunny, plastic and strangely creepy. Hence the change in tone with this looser, tongue in cheek near self-parody. Now the reason why I say the film still works is Snake Plissken. The only character who is played completely straight against the stable of B-movie cliches and skewed Hollywood stereotypes. Maybe in a few years this film will gain the respect it deserves. Still, although I reasonably enjoyed the picture (especially a few choice cuts like the "Bangkok rules" scene) I must admit I liked the first one better too.

Snake, the man with the patch is back doing his thing in what used to be LA and he strolls down what is left of Wilshire Boulevard and takes time to shoot hoops at the Coliseum. Snake, (Kurt Russell) enters into the 9.6-quaked Los Angeles of 2013 in order to retrieve a black box which is a sort of end of the world device. Snake has friends and foes, Steve Buscemi, Peter Fonda, Stacy Keach, Cliff Robertson and a good actress Pam Grier. There is also plenty of action where Snake dive-bombs a Happy Kingdom theme park. The ending of this film is perfect and I enjoyed this film as much as Escape from New York. John Carpenter & Kurt Russell did a great job in the production and directing. Enjoy

this movie is fan-friggin-tastic!!! yet everyone in the world disliked it, and forced the movie industry to call it, "a bomb." do you even realize how much that sucks? this movie is so great. snake plissken is one of the COOLEST characters in film. he's one of those bad-ass guys, who can't lose. the movie is done in much more of a "comic-book" way than the first was. in fact, the first one is in more of a serious tone, whereas "L.A." is like reading a "Punisher" comic book. which this may be why a lot of people disliked this one. and now, we probably won't ever see an "Escape From Cleveland" or "Miami" or "Earth" or Escape From ANYTHING, because the industry called it a bomb, and therefore production companies wouldn't want to put money into another Snake installment. yet we are forced to see sequels to crap, like "Legally Blonde 2" or "Airbud: Golden Receiver." i mean come on, what is going on in this world o' film!!!!! (well actually, "Legally Blonde" wasn't all that bad, i just couldn't think of another bad movie that we are being forced to see a sequel to... hahaha) the point is: I WANT ANOTHER SNAKE PLISSKEN MOVIE!!!!!

In the near future, America has become a moral state where `undesirables' are exiled to Los Angeles (which has become an island due to earthquakes). However, the President's daughter has joined rebels on the island and has fled there with a device that controls a weapon orbiting the earth. With the original strike team killed, the military capture Snake Plissken. Injecting him with a time limited poison, they send him to LA to recover the device and return it to the US. Like Snake would say `same sh*t, different day'.

Joining the list of `why?' sequels, Escape from LA is a belated follow up to Escape From New York. Apart from trying to kick-start the stuttering and stalling career of John Carpenter, the reasons for making this film are not too clear. The plot is a straight lift from the original film with a few details changed. The film is quite basic and episodic with jokes and scenes that are partly designed as part of the plot but mostly aimed at having digs at LA and providing cameos.

The problem is that a great deal of this doesn't really work. Some of the gags are just too obvious (Snake's capture by plastic surgeons) and many of the cameos are pretty lame. The fact that the scenes are used for comic swipes at LA mean that they aren't designed just to move the film along and, as such, occasionally slow it down and make it all feel very bitty and muddled.

What is good about the film is that it is pretty self aware and also seems to play to it's trashy side very well. The script has a nice running gag about Snake seeming smaller than people expect while the whole style of the film plays like a sci-fi spaghetti western. It was this aspect that helped me enjoy the film more as the trashy western side of it worked well. However, the script is poor and most action is just plain silly – I could just about buy Snake making a full court shot in basketball, but the surfing alongside the exact person he was looking for etc all makes it feel a little insulting to my intelligence.

Russell sends his character up pretty well, giving his best Clint Eastwood impression throughout. However the film becomes weak once you look past him in the lead. Cameos from Buscemi, Grier, Fonda and Keach are all pretty rubbish (Grier especially should be embarrassed) and help to add to the trashy feel to the film (that's not a good thing). Carpenter does a good job as director in some regards but rubbish in others. I liked all his spaghetti western touches but much of the action is just plain rubbish. It doesn't help that the effect shots are nearly all very cheap back shots – I know this was a few years ago and things have moved on, but even for the period the effects are really poor.

Overall, this film is poorly structured, poorly presented and trashy from start to finish. However the self mocking nature of the film and the fact that it wears it's trashiness on it's sleeve as a western homage, makes it slightly enjoyable trash. A poor sequel but one that is watchable if you're in an undemanding mood.