![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Among their ranks is charismatic revolutionary Cuervo Jones, who has charmed the President’s comely daughter via the internet (or at least a holographic version of the internet) into stealing a classified weapon that has the power to effectively disable every electronic device on the planet. Stripped of their citizenship, this mixed bag of “morally unfit” Americans run wild, setting up micro-civilizations, most of them bewildered by a country that has forsaken them. The film stars Cliff Robertson as a President who, after being “elected for life” has deemed to Make America Great Again by shipping off every person he deems “undesirable” to L.A., which, due to a massive earthquake and flooding, has become an island. not only holds up beautifully as a high-octane romp, it’s a bit of a marvel a tough, shiny, comic book fantasy with broad performances, a to-die-for cult cast, outrageous set pieces and, most importantly, sharp social criticism that is infinitely more potent and prophetic today than it was in 1996. Escape from L.A., with its sunnier locales and a narrative repeat of the original’s city-as-a-prison gimmick is, on the surface, a bit lazy, true. It swelled with innovation and urgency, another one of Carpenter’s neo-Westerns, an inversion of Rio Bravo. many more admirers, with people almost universally citing it as inferior to its predecessor. Hardcore Escape from New York fans were generally divided, with many just happy to see Russell’s one-eyed outlaw back on screen and many other sneering at what they thought was a too-campy approach.Īnd sadly, the ensuing years haven’t found Escape from L.A. made the same but cost 50 million) and critics were lukewarm to it. ![]() Instead the movie, which cost twice as much as the original earned ( New York raked in 25 million whereas L.A. The movie was released in August via Paramount Pictures, a summer movie that probably would have stood a better chance smashing into theaters in February, a dry season where a built-in cult title like this would have hooked its audience better. were released, screaming “Snake is Back!”, many mainstream viewers were like, “Who the Hell is Snake?!” The character of Snake Plissken ( played by a young and hungry Kurt Russell) was not particularly ingrained into the mainstream pop culture subconscious and so when posters for Escape from L.A. The original film cost $6 million to produce and despite its success, it pretty much remained a cult film. Escape came out the same year as Scream, a sequel to a movie that, by 1996, was a bit played out, having long since cycled through its TV and video runs and a follow-up felt a bit late-out-of-the-gate. Even if you didn’t dig those pictures’ camp approach, they were unarguably fresh entertainments that locked onto what fans wanted and both - especially Scream - were huge hits, both catering to the kind of movies young people were interested in absorbing. The odd bright spots to really define their times were things like Rodriguez’s 1996 horror hybrid From Dusk Till Dawn and Wes Craven’s same-year slasher send-up Scream. The ’90s were a notoriously dismal time for genre movies, due primarily to a generational shift. The latter category of being ahead of its time is exactly where Escape from L.A. RELATED: Kurt Russell on Playing Ego the Living Planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. And yes, I am one of the few that cite Ghosts of Mars (which was originally written as the third Escape movie) as one of his best and most undervalued works. I don’t think he’s ever made a legitimate bad film. When he fails to do that, he’s simply ahead of his time. When Carpenter taps into the zeitgeist ( Halloween), he’s a tastemaker. That Carpenter chased it with his biggest movie - and at that point biggest failing - 1982’s The Thing says much about the filmmaker’s creative and commercial trajectory. When Carpenter released the original Escape in 1981, the modestly-budgeted pulp action flick was a huge hit, both domestically and, surprisingly, in Europe (especially Italy) where, along with 1979’s Mad Max and its 1982 sequel, every savvy producer tried their hand at ripping it off. With news breaking over the weekend that genre movie innovator and digital deconstructionist Robert Rodriguez will be helming the remake of John Carpenter’s cult classic thriller Escape from New York, we thought it a good time to take a quick look back at Carpenter’s own sequel/sorta remake, 1996’s often dismissed or outright ignored Escape from L.A. A re-appraisal of John Carpenter’s often dismissed sequel Escape From L.A. ![]()
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