![]() Never more so than in its cast of main supporting players – replacing Harry Dean Stanton with Steve Buscemi was only going to end one way the blindingly-obvious Che Guevara look-alike Georges Corraface was certainly no match for man’s man Isaac Hayes and the less said about swapping out the near silent but stoic Adrienne Barbeau for Pam Grier playing a bafflingly weird transgender crime lord/lady with the oddest vocal register ever, the better. The main plot is the expected ‘road-trip through hell’, but every stop feels like an almost knowingly camp comment on modern (mid-90s) society – from Bruce Campbell’s hilarious cameo as the head of a plastic surgery cult, to the reprise of EFNY’s gladiator scene now being some ridiculous basketball pastiche that sees Russell setting the bar high for Sigourney Weaver to beat in the following year’s Alien: Resurrection, and onto Peter Fonda’s cringeworthy surf-dude and his band of rad wavers - it feels like every opportunity Carpenter and Russell had to go teasingly extravagant was taken. Russell’s only writing credit, it’s a brilliant example of how as a screenwriter, Russell is a superb actor Yet having taken so long to bring to the screen, Russell, Carpenter and partner-in-crime to both Deborah Hill, seem to take their only shot at a do-over and stuff every idea they could possibly shoehorn into the same skeleton as the first film: newer tech is shown off at every turn (everyone’s in or an actual hologram now), newer cruelties are depicted by ‘the government’ (people opting to die in an electric chair rather than be ‘deported’ to the only part of the US that allows smoking, drinking, the eating of red meat and sexual intimacy outside of marriage… er… hang on a minute…) and newer toys are given to Plissken as he embarks on exactly the same mission (stealth pleather? I want, I need) as before. ![]() Immediately replicating the opening of the first film, only this time with added socio-political snark and lashings of underfunded CG, everything is precision-tooled to have our nostalgia glands tweaked and teased. ![]() Set in the future again – now 2013 – the infamous outlaw/professional eye-patch wearer Snake Plissken is called upon yet again by his country to venture into another man-made hell (this time, earthquake ravaged Los Angeles) to reclaim another man-made hell bringer (the usual satellite weapons platform that can easily be turned into a targeted EMP canon to destroy life as we know it) from the clutches of the island’s inhabitants. Still Russell’s only writing credit, it’s a brilliant example of how as a screenwriter, Russell is a superb actor. Not even close.īirthed and deathed almost single-handedly by its star Kurt Russell, who was so desperate to revisit his favourite character, he pushed for nearly fifteen years until Carpenter finally relented and made this long-awaited and hugely anticipated sequel. “ Escape from LA is better than the first movie. Take this quote from an interview Carpenter gave Erik Bauer of Creative Screenwriting ( “It’s Always the Story” – The Craft of Carpenter ()) some years ago: God-like horror legend… synth-muso maestro… hilariously grumpy and very candid casher of cheques from anyone willing to stick his name on something.īut sometimes, just sometimes, he is also just wrong.
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