Escape From L.A. (1996)

Film: Escape from L.A.
Director: John Carpenter
IMDB User Rating: 4.9/10







Premise: The year is 2013 and Snake Plissken is back from Escape From New York. An earthquake has separated Los Angeles from the mainland. In the New Moral America, all citizens not conforming to the new laws (no smoking, no red meat, no Muslims in South Dakota) are deported to L.A., now a penal colony. The President's daughter has stolen a doomsday device and has fled to L.A. It's up to Snake Plissken to find the President's daughter and retrieve the doomsday device before its too late. Written by Anonymous


Blog Review: Escape from NY is one of the best 80's movies and possibly John Carpenters greatest work. On a personal note I love Starman, I think its his best film but i digress. Escape fro LA was a much hyped sequel to NY. i remember how much people were talkign about seeing this movie. Its supposed to take place 17 years in the future. LA is now a penal colony. Sound familiar? Kurt Russell clearly loves playing Snake Plisskin our hero or more the "anti hero" We all now how people find LA to be vain and self absorbed, so its fun to see how Carpenter plays on LA as a prison hell hole. Places that were once amazing estates and high end fashion streets are now overrun by gangs and warlords trying to run The LA island prison. The problem starts when the effects are just cheesy, this MOVIE needed a bigger budget but you can see the wires in some stunts the poor set design from the beginning. it was too polished, the original was gritty but this was just spit out by the Hollywood machine. I heard grumblings that Carpenter has plans for the final installment Escape from Earth, I'd still see this but would be leary that it may turn out like Ghosts of Mars.

Movie Drop off Point: Now to the fun part, Snake Plisskin is supposed to be the biggest bad ass ever, his name is renowned for his tough guy persona. Snake wouldn't help a dying kid on the street if he knew the path to freedom was on the other side. So why would they write scene in this film where Snake Plisskin plays basketball for his freedom. In the orginal Snake was in a battle to the death in a ring "Thunderdome" style. This was just a lazy way for them to make Snake do something. So we get to watch Kurt Russell take layups for 5 minutes. Am I in the minority when i say "Huh?..." John Carpenter, Kurt Russell or any of the many character actors couldn't of chimed in and been like ... Snake Plisskin would never do this... but again I bet the studios deemed this scene necessary. That scene I remember vividly and how I thought to myself, this is a bad movie and i want to go home.

Recommendation: See the original - 3 out of 10
Film Recommendation: Escape From NY(80), Mad Max (79), The Quiet Earth (85)