An impassioned review of Escape From LA, written in anger shortly after Lawrence and I returned from a free screening.
I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I remember Escape From New York fondly. It was a stupid, cheesy action flick, but it wasn’t without style or wit.
Then I saw the trailer for Escape From L.A., and was amused: I admit, I was looking forward to this movie. When I managed to score tickets to a free sneak preview, well…I went.
And I suffered for your sins.
Do not, under any circumstances, go to see Escape From L.A. (oh, excuse me, John Carpenter’s Escape From L.A.). Even if you did like Escape From New York. Even if you are a Steve Buscemi or Pam Grier fan. You will want back the two hours stolen from your life.
I knew it would be lame before the opening credits finished. There are certain moviegoing rules of thumb: one of my most reliable is that the quality of the movie varies inversely with the number of people who wrote the script. Three is a critical point; the best scripts are usually one person’s vision, and sometimes having a second person helps. But three or more people working on the script is a good sign the movie is a waste of money, brains, and time. Escape From L.A. doesn’t just credit three people with coughing up its hairball of a script: the three criminals responsible are the director (John Carpenter), co-producer (Debra Hill), and the co-producer/male lead (Kurt Russell).
And what did this triumverite hack up? A rewrite of Escape From New York, with lame L.A. jokes inserted, uncorrected continuity errors, and a dependance on characters who behave like idiots. (Can anyone explain to me the point of the extended motorcycle chase early on? Or, get this one: “We’ve got the world-famous gunfighter surrounded, and we’ve got the drop on him. Should we shoot him now?” “No, let’s let him challenge us to a gunfight.” The mind boggles. The moviegoer leaves for a Coke.) And the climax depends on a character who (surprise!) Kurt Russell’s character just happens to know, and who just happens to have a bunch of hang gliders lying around the Queen Mary. The peak of wit in this script is, “You’re Snake Plisskin? I thought you’d be…taller.” (a line repeated ad nausium).
Kurt Russell sleepwalks through his role as Snake Plisskin. (It doesn’t help that the script gives him no memorable lines: but, wait, he wrote the script!) George Corraface carries off the role of rebel leader “Cuevo Jones” with less charisma than Lamar Alexander: perhaps the only mystery of this movie is why anyone pays any attention to Cuervo. Steve Buscemi plays the same one-note character he played in Fargo, but this time we’re denied the compensation of his being fed into a wood chipper. The only person who comes off at all well in this hackwork is…Peter Fonda, of all people, as L.A.’s last surfer. (You know you’re in trouble when you find yourself missing the acting talents of Adrienne Barbeau.)
And, for a movie with this budget, the effects are unforgivably lame. The mattes are screamingly obvious mattes, while the sets and minitures seem to have been recycled from vastly better movies. There is one sequence with Peter Fonda and Kurt Russell surfing a tidal wave, in pursuit of Steve Buscemi’s Cadillac convertable-driving agent-wanna-be, that’s almost worth paying attention to).
The best I can say about Escape From L.A. is that the whole series is self-limiting. After you’ve done New York and Los Angeles, what’s left?
Escape From Chicago?
Escape From Omaha?
Escape From Albany?
This is a small thing to be thankful for. But, after having suffered through the tired mess of Escape From L.A., I’ll take my comfort where I can find it.