Escape de Los Ángeles

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.

Exciting and spectacular rescue into Los Angeles destroyed by earthquakes, floods, mudslides, and become a top-security prison . This thrilling picture results to be an inferior sequel to Escape from N.Y. , the latter become a real Cult Movie . It contains mystery , chills , noisy action , thrills , fights , social critical , bits of humor with tongue-in cheek attitude and a weird atmosphere with dark and surprising ending . Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, he was the only cast member from the original film to appear in the sequel)is once again called in by the United States government (Stacy Keach as officer , Michele Forbes as deputy and Clift Robertson as President) to recover a potential doomsday device from Los Angeles, now an autonomous island where undesirables are deported and finds itself under siege by violent gangs . A previous war hero named Snake Plissken gone rebel must execute a daring adventure and bring up a powerful artifact in twenty four hours . Snake must recover it and along the way facing off villains like Cuervo Jones (George Corraface) . He's only helped by a sympathetic rogue underling (Steve Buscemi who took the part in this film to help fund his directorial debut, Trees Lounge) , and action women (Valeria Golino, Pam Grier) . As Snake Plissken to get in and out of Los Angeles .

The film is a comic book plenty of action , fun , adventures , suspense , thriller and surprise-filled entertainment . Magnificent plethora of characters with decent performances by its entire cast . Middle-budget by Paramount Pictures , in fact its President Sherry Lansing was a fan of "Escape from New York" and wanted John Carpenter, Kurt Russell and Debra Hill to make the sequel in the same vein as the original. Kurt Russell as tough and valiant renegade is terrific . At the beginning of the film, Kurt Russell wears his costume from the original film, which still fits after 15 years . Kurt Russell not only came up with but wrote the entire ending of the movie , in fact it was the first and only writing credit . Escape From LA was caught in development hell for over ten years . A script for the film was first commissioned in 1985 but John Carpenter thought it "too light, too campy" . An initial script was written , but it remained dormant until Carpenter and Kurt Russell got together with frequent collaborator Debra Hill. It was Russell's persistence that got the film made ; Snake Plissken was his favourite character, a character he loved and wanted to play again . Support cast is frankly good such as Peter Fonda , Cliff Robertson , Valeria Golino , Stacy Keach , Pam Grier , Bruce Campbell , Michelle Forbes , A.J. Langer and Peter Jason , Carpenter's usual . The picture contains an imaginative and memorable production design by Lawrence G. Paull . Colorful and glimmer cinematography by Gary B. Kibbe . John Carpenter also made the atmospheric music score along with Shirley Walker . The movie likely to satisfy action enthusiasts and Kurt Russell fans .

Director John Carpenter is in familiar ground with this well-done tale on the style of comic books and old Sci-Fi serials . His films often feature important visuals shown from a video screen , as the end-of-the-world transmission from the future in ¨Prince of darkness¨ (1987), the Norwegian recordings of the expedition to uncover the aliens in ¨The Thing¨ (1982), various TV sets and the general anti-TV motif in ¨They live¨(1988), etc. ¨1997 escape from N.Y¨ was realized during his best period in the 70s and late 8os when he directed classics as ¨Halloween¨, ¨The fog ¨, ¨Christine¨, ¨They live¨ , ¨Big Trouble in Little China¨ and ¨The thing¨ . The sequel ¨Escape from L.A¨ rating : average but entertaining . The movie will enjoy to noisy action fans but packs a roller-coaster thriller and wholesome amusement . The film will appeal to John Carpenter enthusiasts . A third sequel was going to be made titled Escape from Earth which would have had Snake escaping Earth after a dark matter experiment. However, the negative reaction to this film prevented the sequel from being developed. As the movie was a notorious failure on release, making around $25 million , just half its budget , at the US box office. Many reviews criticized the film for being too violent or for being too similar to the original film .

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

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.

So, recently if seen this amazing movie again, sitting on my couch and listening to this incredible genius made music. I really don't know, why most of the people prefer Escape from N.Y. When I first saw N.Y. it really didn't get me. But one must be said for sure: ESCAPE FROM L.A. DO HAVE THE BEST ENDING I'VE EVER SEEN IN A MOVIE MADE UNTIL NOW! So all of you, who haven't seen it yet, go get it!

PS: Sorry, if there are some gramatical errors, but my English isn't that good.