Escape from L.A.

John Carpenter's Escape From New York is(In my opinion.)his best movie, with Halloween as his 2nd. Then, we have this sequel to the 1981 hit. The action was more intense and the stunts were more dangerous, but that didn't save the film from being a rehash of it's predecessor. But all-in-all this is a cool flick, with an ending I did not expect. O.k. story, good acting, and effects. ***1/2 out of *****. Can I be in the 3rd one?

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.

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.

When I think of John Carpenter's best work, it basically boils down to the years of 1978's Halloween to 1988's They Live.

I suppose part of why I feel these were Carpenter's best years was that I was in my late pre-teens when Halloween came out and at the end of my teens when They Live was released. A lot of Carpenter's stuff during that decade seemed to resonate best with adolescent males, of which I was one. Thus, I just LOVED Escape From New York...in part, I suppose, because I was still young enough when that came out that movies had the ability to transport my imagination. I was still young enough back then that I hadn't yet became cynical and was totally able to buy into the premise of that movie without wondering about the ton of plot holes that seemed so obvious decades later.

Plot holes ably pointed out by the hosts of my favorite youtube movie-centered channel (really, the only youtube movie-centered channel I watch so I suppose it is by default my favorite) RedLetterMedia, such as 1) why would one of the most valuable pieces of real estate on the planet, Manhattan Island in NYC, be turned into a prison? And 2) why would the President of the United States be played by an English actor with an English accent? And on and on.

However, the guys at RedLetterMedia also pointed out that whatever else on could say about Escape From New York, the one thing that was true was the cast and the production treated the material seriously. Escape From New York was clearly a B-movie, but one where all the performances were acted seriously. Which I think is another part of why Escape From New York worked as well as it did.

Which brings us to Escape From L. A.

Even though I was in my late-20s when it came out, I was looking forward to Escape From L. A. I was hopeful it would be a neat blast backward to the Carpenter style I had enjoyed in my early teens. Kurt Russell looked like he had kept himself in reasonable physical condition. Carpenter, Russell and Debrah Hill all had written and produced the movie, with Carpenter back behind the camera directing. Surely if anybody could get a sequel to Escape From New York right it would be John Carpenter, Kurt Russell and Debrah Hill...

Well...

I think part of the problem as to why Snake Plissken's jaunt to the West Coast came up a bit short had to do with Escape From L. A. being a bit TOO much like Escape From New York in terms of the plot points or beats of the movie. Whereas Escape From New York felt like an original premise back in the early 1980's, Escape From L. A. circa 1996 in terms of general storyline structure came off a bit too much like an intentional copy of Escape From New York. As such, throughout the viewing of Escape From L. A. everything feels too familiar. Like Carpenter, Russell and Company were too afraid to deviate from the original New York formula. Comes across as playing it safe.

The other part of the problem is that unlike Escape From New York most of the cast in Escape From L. A. are either underplaying their parts or hamming it up and going over the top. Outside of Russell, nobody else in the L. A. cast feels like they're taking the material seriously. Thus, as a viewer, I found it impossible to suspend disbelief and take the movie seriously.

Finally, Escape From New York demonstrated an effective use of matte paintings, miniatures, animation and the like to create a believable movie world environment. Escape From L. A. had a much larger budget than Escape From New York did, yet somehow having more money seemed to work to the detriment of the sequel re: world building. A lot of the settings looked far more synthetic and professionally set dressed than those in New York. And there was a lot of very, very clunky CGI in the sequel which looked as bad in 1996 as it does in 2024. One might say CGI in 1996 was still in the early stages, yet the first film in 1981 managed to get the job done better without the aid of any CGI.

In the end, Escape From New York had an underlying sense of menace. Escape From L. A. was just a bit too cartoonish. Not the worst sequel I've ever seen but fell a bit short of the mark. Some good moments here and there...I dunno. Maybe the whole Snake Plissken premise was only bound to work well once the first time around.

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.