ESCAPE FROM L. A.
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
Starring: John Carpenter, Stacy Keach, George Corraface, A. J. Langer, Steve Buscemi, Cliff Robertson, Valeria Golino, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier. Screenplay: John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Kurt Russell. Director: John Carpenter. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
"Snake is Back" proclaim the posters for ESCAPE FROM L. A., and from multiplexes across the nation, I can hear the answering cry of, "Who?" Let's face it, this isn't exactly Indiana Jones we're talking about -- Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken last graced theater screens fifteen years ago in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, when a significant percentage of today's action film audience was somewhere between puberty and mastering solid food, and that film was not what one would call a classic of the genre. But Russell is a born again action hero after the success of STARGATE and EXECUTIVE DECISION, so he has once again donned the eye-patch (as well as the titles of co-writer and co-producer) for another futuristic adventure. The result is an attempt at self-satire which comes off as a tiresome exercise in pyrotechnics and cheap blue screen effects.
In ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, Snake was forced to rescue the President of the United States after Air Force 1 crashes inside a prison colony which once was Manhattan. This time around, the location is Los Angeles, broken off from the continent after a massive earthquake and turned into a dumping round for undesirables by a morally authoritarian President (Cliff Robertson). But it isn't the president Snake needs to find; instead, it is the First Daughter (A. J. Langer), who has stolen an experimental weapon in an act of defiance. She intends to bring it to Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), an international criminal who rules Los Angeles and plans to invade the U.S. Snake is made an offer he can't refuse: bring back the weapon in ten hours, or die of a designer virus introduced into his blood.
It is a good thing Carpenter, Russell and company waited so long between NEW YORK and L. A., because even those who actually saw the first film probably have forgotten enough not to notice that ESCAPE FROM L. A. is virtually a point-for-point remake of the original. In New York, Snake meets Brain (Harry Dean Stanton), a former running buddy who once left Snake high and dry and whom Snake insists on calling by his real name; in L. A., Snake meets Hershe (Pam Grier), a transsexual former running buddy who once left Snake high and dry and whom Snake insists on calling by his/her real name. NEW YORK had snake on a time clock before something introduced into his body kills him; ditto for L. A. Both find Snake chatting with a sympathetic woman who is promptly blown away, and both find snake in an athletic contest for the amusement of the villains. The number of duplicated details is quite astonishing, actually. At least everyone involved did their homework.
The twist they try to place on ESCAPE FROM L. A. is that it is supposed to be funnier, almost a parody of the original. I say "supposed to" because John Carpenter may be one of the most humorless directors of the last twenty years, taking even bizarre material like BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and deadening it with his brooding style. His idea of a joke in ESCAPE FROM L. A. is showing every possible Southern California landmark (Hey, it's Universal Studios!...Hey, it's the Queen Mary!) or making a quick reference to every possible stereotype of Los Angeles living, and to show that he isn't taking anything seriously with some low-tech special effects, including a computer-generated submarine voyage which makes TRON look positively state-of-the-art. A few of the gags are clever, like a shot at L. A.'s front-running sports fans; others can't find a comfortable place between gruesome and silly, like a gang of cosmetic surgery victims always in search of fresh body parts. ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK was overly somber, but it was lean and efficient and quite good at creating its desolate urban landscape. ESCAPE FROM L. A. finds Carpenter making scattershot attempts at humor, and the experience is like being tickled by a robot.
There are a few simple pleasures to be found in the performances, including Kurt Russell's laconic Snake. It's one of the best (if unintentional) jokes that despite the fact that everyone in the world seems to know who Snake Plissken is, he has probably been able to escape capture because he has no discernible personality. Russell does a guttural Clint Eastwood impression, and makes a solid anti-hero. Steve Buscemi also has fun as Cuervo's sniveling assistant Maps-of-the-Stars'-Homes Eddie, and Bruce Campbell makes an almost unrecognizable appearance as the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills. Mostly, though, ESCAPE FROM L. A. is a collection of fragments and missed opportunities where it is expected that a multitude of sins will be hidden by big fireballs (motorcycles tend to explode as though hit by nuclear warheads upon contact with the ground in a John Carpenter film). Snake may be back, but he doesn't have much to say, and what he does have to say has been said before.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 California splits: 3.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw
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