Escape From L.A. (1996) Movie Review

Escape From L.A. (1996) Movie Review

I’m not exactly sure how far I’m going to get writing this review. Escape From L.A. is a movie unlike anything I’d seen before and I doubt that I’ll ever see anything like it again. It’s definitely the straight-up craziest movie I’ve ever seen. It might not be the worst, the stupidest, or even the weirdest (that, I think, still belongs to Little Nicky), but it is the craziest. It’s so utterly unpredictable and insane that It’s pretty much impossible to say if it’s good or not.

It’s not like John Carpenter isn’t a talented director. He’s made some of my favorite films out there (The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China), and can really make some good stuff happen on screen. But, like, was he even trying here? The special effects are marvelously terrible. Like, they suck. A lot. And the acting is so corny and weird. Kurt Russell doesn’t really look like he’s trying that hard either. He barely speaks, and when he does, everything sounds so aggressive and stupid. I guess he’s just really not here to make friends. But that’s the problem- the whole Snake Plissken character (in both movies) is actually not very cool. He doesn’t talk, like, at all, and when he does, he’s usually not saying anything very important, and I guess he’s supposed to be all cool and tough but it’s just dumb. Nobody acts that way. Snake Plissken’s relatability factor is zero. In one scene, he rips his stolen leather jacket off of the thug who took it, and spits, “I’ll take my coat back, a**hole.” It’s so incredibly funny and outrageous. The whole movie is that way.

One of my biggest problems with this movie is how insanely unpredictable it is. In some films, unpredictability can actually be a good thing, surprising the viewer with twists and turns to further extend and better the storyline. But here everything is a totally incoherent mess. New characters that look like they could potentially have big roles are introduced and disposed of about ten minutes later. Sequences that have nothing to do with anything are just thrown in. It’s actually really weird. Like, trust me. This movie is crazy as stoop. At one point, Snake is thrown into a basketball court and he has to make a certain amount of baskets in a certain amount of time or something, and then makes every single shot, no matter how unlikely it is that anybody would make that in real life. He and some other guy named Pipeline (Peter Fonda) go surfing on a TSUNAMI (that’s not possible) through the city streets, and they high five and it’s just all a big dumpster fire of a movie that didn’t need to be made, and I am not even going to try describing the pure madness that it is. Actually: there is a scene where Pam Grier plays a transgender gang leader flying over Disneyland on a futuristic hang glider shooting at the thugs below with a machine gun. It’s that kind of movie.

So, basically, here’s the *basic* plot. It starts off annoyingly similar to the original Escape From New York, but quickly develops into an entirely different and much more wild beast than its comparably tamer predecessor. Los Angeles has been removed from America and now serves the same purpose New York did in the first movie (it houses criminals and people nobody likes). The president’s (Cliff Robertson) daughter (A.J. Langer) steals the device that controls her father’s apocalyptic destroying machine and escapes to L.A. to hide from him. The president and his two right-hand people (Stacy Keach, Michelle Forbes) send Snake Plissken off into L.A. to find her and bring him his device back, or else he will be poisoned and die or whatever. So he goes to the city to find that everybody sucks, so he wants to justify ripping someone’s head off (if you get the joke, I’m happy for you, but Limp Bizkit is terrible). Anyways, Snake meets up with Pipeline and then kicks the crap out of some random goons. Then he gets captured by an evil surgical failure cult that want to remove his limbs and features, headed by the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills (none other than Bruce Campbell, of course). He breaks out of that random place with another lady who was in the exact same position named Tasmila (Valeria Golino). We think that Tasmila will be the main female protagonist but instead gets shot in a hilarious and random turn of events. Snake soons meets up with Map to the Star Eddie (Steve Buscemi), a shady dude who has maps of the city. But it turns out that Eddie works for Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface), the villain of the movie who looks like Che Guevara. It turns out that Utopia (the president’s daughter) hangs out with Cuervo, so Snake decides to bust up the scene to try and complete the mission. Somewhere in there the surfing scene happens, and somewhere in there he gets help from the Pam Grier character and her thugs, and they shoot ‘em up in the final battle that takes place in the middle of Disneyland. In a messy, weird ending, Snake restarts all of technology and then smokes some American Spirit, welcoming us all to the human race.

This movie is indescribable. It’s ludicrous in every way, shape, and form. It has no reason, rational thought, or motive behind any of its bizarre scenes or deformed plot twists. This is just a messy, messy, lazy, explosive, totally insane movie that doesn’t give a single crap but goes for broke at the same time. It was definitely fun to watch and laugh hysterically at, but I’m not exactly sure I liked it, per say. If you look at it like the action thriller it was supposed to be, then it’s just terrible. If you look at it from a comedic standpoint, it’s actually pretty good. If you look at it like it’s an exploitational satire, then it makes just a shred of sense. If you look at it from the angle that it was trying to do something totally new and different altogether, then it’s a work of genius. But that’s not what it was. John and Kurt (who co-wrote and co-produced the darned thing, by the way) just wanted to make a sequel to it, probably just so they could work together again. I’ve been writing about it for at least an hour but haven’t even scratched the surface of what the heck this movie actually is.

Safety Chart:

Violence: 7/10- There are some violent moments, including shootings, stabbings, and explosions, but everything looks pretty fake.

Language: 5/10- Serious curses are said, along with some more minor curse words.

Drinking/Smoking: 6/10- Lots of smoking. Snake Plissken finally gets the cigarette he had been asking for since the beginning of Escape From New York.

Escape From L.A. is a total free-for-all hazard of a movie that doesn’t care about itself and is awesome and is utter trash. I’m not going to try to truly sum up this movie, because it’s impossible. John Carpenter and Kurt Russell made a movie unlike any other. It can’t be contained. It’s unstoppable. It sucks. It’s great. I’m going to give it a C- as a grade, but take that with a grain of salt because if you see this movie, you could love it. It’s lovable. It’s also easy to hate. It’s simply the most insane piece of artwork I’ve ever experienced.