Loner Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) has been captured by the U.S. national police force and brought to officers Malloy and Brazen (Stacy Keach, Michelle Forbes). They force him to undertake a mission for the Christian fanatic president (Cliff Robertson). He must enter L.A., no longer part of the country after the earthquake of 2000, and retrieve a black box stolen by the president’s daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), and given to the revolutionary leader, Cuervo Jones (George Corraface). Entering the island city by sub, Snake meets an array of colorful characters who both help and hinder him, including treacherous Map to the Stars Eddie (Steve Buscemi), ex-thief Hershe Las Palmas (Pam Grier), and surfer-dude Pipeline (Peter Fonda).
Like its predecessor, Escape From New York, Escape From L.A. earns its post-apocalyptic label with a mini-apocalypse. The world hasn’t been destroyed, just L.A. And like in most post-apocalyptic tales, the story follows one, tough, unpleasant, larger-than-life anti-hero as he fights everybody. This is also a dystopian film as the U.S. has become a Christian theocratic dictatorship. Director John Carpenter, never one to shy away from his political leanings, uses both aspects to extol the virtues of libertarianism (making the film feel like Demolition Man, or his own They Live). While most of the politics is hammered too hard, the arrests for “moral crimes” does touch a nerve in modern U.S. lawmaking.
But this is no contemplative film; it’s an all out action picture, with guns a’blazing. Carpenter tosses in everything. If there’s movement, it’s in the film. Besides the shooting (with machine guns, rocket launchers, pistols, rifles, mouth darts, and net guns), there is a fight with a scalpel, hang gliding, high speed submarine travel, surfing on a tidal wave, and a basketball game. A basketball game? Yeah, well, I didn’t say it all works.
While Escape From New York was an action picture with some comedy, Escape From L.A. is a comedy pic with lots of action. Everything is light, fluffy, and silly. The characters are often caricatures of current L.A. stereotypes. So, there’s a guy still selling maps to the star’s homes, even though everything is in ruins. There’s an evil group of plastic surgery addicts, and a surfer waiting to ride a tidal wave. You could label it social criticism, but it is less a call for change than a child pointing and laughing.
While this is one of Carpenter’s most expensive movies, it looks like his cheapest. The real problem is in ineffective and extremely obvious CGI. From the submarine to the giant wave to a wide shot of the city, nothing looks real.
As a sequel, Escape From L.A. took the path of least resistance, repeating almost every plot point of the original. Snake is the same guy as before. He’s arrested again, given a mission that involves retrieving something for the president of the United States, and is given an implant that will kill him if he doesn’t complete the job in a set time. He’s again sent into a prison island, where he meets wacky characters, including a girl that wants to help him and a driver to take him around. The similarities continue, but you should be getting the idea. If you liked Escape From New York, well here it is again, with everyone older and the jokes broader. Why not just watch the first one?
John Carpenter’s other films include Halloween, The Fog, Prince of Darkness, and Village of the Damned.