ESCAPE FROM L.A.
A film review by Michael Redman
Copyright 1996 Michael Redman
*1/2 (out of ****)
Walking into the theater, I was expecting a teched-up sequel to the 15 year old "Escape From New York". Seeing only four people seated, I should have guessed that the word of mouth wasn't phenomenal. After the first few minutes of the film, I could see why.
The earlier film, also starring Kurt Russell and directed by John Carpenter, featured a post-apocalyptic NYC turned into a prison island populated by off-beat an colorful gangs. Tough (but lovable) Guy Snake Plissken (Russell) is recruited by the powers that be to rescue the President who crash landed in the middle of the mess. To keep Snake on track, he is booby-trapped so that if he doesn't deliver the Prez within a time limit, he dies.
Once inside the city, our antihero locates the chief executive and fights his way out, guns a'blazing. Zillions of bullets zoom towards Snake with his name on them, but he emerges virtually unscathed, ready to deal with the governmental double-cross.
Why talk so much about the original? The plots of both films are nearly identical. Substitute New York with "Los Angeles after the big one" and President with "President's daughter and mysterious black box" and you've got "Escape From LA".
In this version, the Christian right has taken over the country and sentenced the whores, atheists, meat-eaters and smokers to LA. It's debatable which side of the wall is the actual prison. If it weren't a deportation facility, it would be marketed as the perfect vacation spot. Like many films with Roman numerals in their titles, this is no sequel. Sequels continue the story: this is more of a re-make. Even worse, this is a shabby re-make.
The original gave us an occasionally humorous, entertaining action film where the effects worked even though some things didn't make sense. Now that they've spent six times what the first one cost, we get an over-the-top tedious movie with badly done models and poor computer animation where nothing makes sense.
There are attempts at humor. If you think that Snake Plissken and Peter Fonda surfing a tsunami down Wilshire Boulevard while trying to catch up with a convertible sounds hilarious, this may be the film for you. Russell does as much as he can with his Clint Eastwood impression and is the only thing consistently worth watching. On the other hand, Carpenter should be ashamed. Perhaps his next movie should be "Escape From Bad Films".
[This appeared in "The Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana, 8/22/96. Michael Redman can be reached at mredman@bvoice.com]
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