Escape From L.A.

If Escape From New York is preposterous, then Escape From L.A. is barking, effing ridonkulous.  That doesn't mean I won't watch the film, though.

This film is a logical next step for Carpenter's Snake Plissken character.  We've been to New York, so let's go visit the other city that Hollywood cares about: Los Angeles.  One wonders whether Carpenter stopped after L.A. because the film is an inferior sequel, or because he ran out of cities in which Hollywood makes movies.  New York and L.A. — there is nowhere else, right?

One year after the events of Escape From New York, Los Angeles is devastated when an earthquake strikes, lopping the city off into the sea.  In John Carpenter's far-flung future of 1998, Manhattan Island is a prison, and Los Angeles Island (you read that correctly), turns into an Australia of sorts — the place where all "undesirables" are deported.  Sometimes tsunamis strike — the kind of tsunamis that don't flood the city so much as just run through the odd crevasse here and there and make for good surfing.

Then we fast-forward to 2013, the even more far-flung future, where Snake Plissken arrives in Los Angeles wearing pretty much the same thing he was wearing when he left New York.  Hey, in post-apocalyptic America, you can't expect Plissken to just stop at Dick's Sporting Goods every time he needs some camo pants.  He also still has a mullet and an eyepatch.  (Apparently in 2013, they don't do eye replacement yet.  Better wait for Minority Report, Snake.)

Escape From L.A. creates an America that might be scarier than the one depicted in the first film.  In 2013, we live in a fascist theocracy and have a president-for-life (played by...Peter Parker's Uncle Ben?).  I would've predicted someone who looked a bit more like Tina Fey.

I mostly own this film for completist reasons.  If you have the first Escape film, you need the second one, just to see how far Carpenter goes.  Carpenter and Russell are both back, and so is pretty much the exact same formula as the first film.  Snake is recruited against his will to rescue somebody important from a hostile place, and if he fails, he'll die because they've injected him with something that will kill him if he's not back in time.  Sound familiar?  I'm talking about the first film.  I'm also talking about the second film.

All the set pieces are different, but the plot points are the same.  He doesn't fly into New York in a glider; he shoots into L.A. in a nuclear-powered submarine.  If you thought the special effects of the first film were silly, wait until you see circa-1996 digital effects.  A shark tries to eat the submarine.  I'm serious.

Ernest Borgnine and Harry Dean Stanton are combined and ably replaced by Steve Buscemi's teeth.  Isaac Hayes' "The Duke" is gone, replaced by some guy you've never heard of as "Cuervo Jones."  The rest of the cast is a who's who of B-movie stars: Bruce Campbell, Pam Grier, Peter Fonda, and Stacy Keach are all here, and they chew as much scenery as Carpenter allows (which is a lot).  Carpenter even gets my favorite stock Asian character actor, Al Leong, whom you've seen before in probably thousands of films that required Asians with long hair.  Still, no one upstages Russell's Plissken.

Escape From L.A. is evidence of my completist tendencies run amok.  This film probably should be relegated to the B-movie dustbin, but I can't let that happen.  This is part of a series, possibly of more than two films, and as a DVD collector, there was no question: I needed this film.  I bought this on the same day as my copy of Escape From New York, and in the same Half Price Books store.  You can't have one without the other.  You're missing out otherwise.

Yeah, I have my complaints, but Escape From L.A. is great fun if you just let go and let the stupidity wash over you in a wave of ridiculousness.  The soundtrack kicks ass (if you like '90s rock, anyway), with lots of post-grunge and sludge — the kind of music my wife loves to hear in the car.  Or not.

Though not as good as the first, and definitely way goofier, the film somehow still works, by the slimmest of margins.  Reviews were mixed, but even Kevin Smith defends this one (I know we're in a post-Cop Out world, but let's not judge).

He surfs a tsunami with Peter Fonda.  He shoots basketball.  He hang-glides.  He's Snake Plissken, an archetypal '80s action hero transplanted to the mid-'90s, and sadly never heard from again.

I wish John Carpenter would make one more film with the Plissken character, and follow basically the same formula (why change now?).  Russell will be 60 next year, but doesn't really look his age, and if Death Proof is any indication, he can still play a badass.  I mentioned previously how I worked with a cartoonist who had a great idea for a third film, set in a different city.  The story is out there.  The film could be done.  I'd go.

So this is a plea to John Carpenter, who is no doubt reading this blog (really!): Do one more Snake Plissken film with Kurt Russell, but don't necessarily do this one just yet.  Set the film somewhere else, somewhere with history, landmarks, interest...and get my former co-worker on the horn.  I can give you his contact info.  He's got an idea for you.  I'm telling you; it'll rock.