Subject: REVIEW: ESCAPE FROM L. A. (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Scott Renshaw)
Date: 9 Aug 1996 15:24:08 GMT

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