Gene Siskel: I was surprised at how much I enjoyed "No Escape". I usually shrink away from brutal films, but just like last week, with my positive review of "Surviving the Game", I enjoyed the energy and the single-mindedness of "No Escape". It exists only to get a "wow", a whole series of "wow"s from the audience, and I thought it earned them.
Roger Ebert: Y'know, I can't quite recommend this film, and there are a bunch of reasons why. Uh, one would be the ludicrous special effects when they're trying to escape from the island...
Gene Siskel: I LIKE all that stuff! I like it!
Roger Ebert: ... In that little moving animated pod in that so-called water. Uh, another problem is, uh, the society on the island is never really explained. The funniest line in the movie, and I think it's inadvertently funny, is when, after they have that horrible bloodshed and they set everything on fire, which, the next day, isn't burned down for some reason, and somebody says "They attack like this four or five times a year." Well, if they DO attack like that four or five times a year, why is anybody left alive? And what are they doing, other than attacking each other?
Gene Siskel: That's all they're doing. This, this is, Roger, this is a mach...
Roger Ebert: Remember, they're supposed to be slave labor. That's set up at the beginning. What labor do they do, other than to fight each other?
Gene Siskel: This isn't a doc...
Roger Ebert: Okay, I'm a square, right? I didn't get the point, yeah.
Gene Siskel: But the way you started to respond to me was like, "I can't quite recommend it, but..."
Roger Ebert: No, I can't, I can't, because among other things...
Gene Siskel: But what...
Roger Ebert: It's all...
Gene Siskel: All action. One...
Roger Ebert: All been seen before. The obligatory scene where the ruler has all of his little minions...
Gene Siskel: How about...
Roger Ebert: ... Dueling with each other, and that gladitorial stuff.
Gene Siskel: That big pole! That big pole that obliter...
Roger Ebert: Yeah, "the big pole", okay. Tell me some more about it.
