Cheap Escape from L.A. (DVD) (Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi, Stacy Keach) (John Carpenter) Price

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Customer Reviews of Escape from L.A.

"You gotta be kidding me.."!
that was the exact quote from map of the stars eddie played by steve buscemi when he saw snake catch up to a sppeding car via surfing!(?) which i muttered that same quote after seeing this disapointing sequel. As a huge fan of the first movie, i was expecting so much more, especially since the movie was financed by paramount. but dammit L.A. was a rehash of escape from ny.
but with a few added twists and cameos from bruce campbell,peter fonda and blaxploitation goddess pam grier. even yes, issac "the duke of new york" hayes has a 3 second part as one of the gaurds by the gate. speaking of which the main villian cuevo jones is very lame compared to EFNY's DUKE. the sergeon general as well as hershe shouldv'e played a much bigger part as major villians as oppossed to jones, too bad the gorgoues valena gordino lasted only 8 minutes in the movie , but it would be corny as well as comtemporarly for an anti hero like snake to have a love intrest.
the fight scenes were sluggish especially between russel and caraface, i guess it was due to russel's flu while filming L.A.
the music was cool, once again carpenter showcases his multitalent.(the surf theme was my favorite, but NOT AVAILABLE ON THE SOUNDTRACK CD!!!!) as for shirley walker's input;
honey stick to scoring those batman cartoons. (sigh)
Cliff robertson (spider-man) does a awesome parody of a self rightious and right wing fanatical president. (hence, republican) but wtf is up with pam grier playing a transvestite?!!? she couldv'e easily been a female rival for snake plissken, but instead the double entandra that is HERSHE is nothing more of a silly-ass sterotype ("carjack malone"??)
all in all, escape from l.a. has it's moments and SNAKE PLISSKEN has the potential of becoming a great franchise. if handeled correctly (comicbook series, videogame and upcoming anime from the guys that produced GHOST IN THE SHELL>) ANYWAY LOVE IT OR HATE IT, IT'S GOOD TO SEE SNAKE BACK AFTER 15 YEARS!!!

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"Escape From L.A." is more of the same!
This sequel to Carpenter's 1980 cult classic "Escape From New York" is more or less a bigger budget retelling of the same story. Russell is back as Snake Plitsken, the one-eyed outlaw hero who once again will be offered a full pardon if he goes into a criminal-infested prison that used to be a major American city. This time, he has to confiscate a "doomsday device" from a sadistic terrorist who is using it to blackmail the United States. Despite the more than fifteen years that seperate the two films, this one really doesn't offer much on "New York" aside from a cool underwater sequence involving a certain Universal Studios attraction and a couple of cool special effects scenes. Russell is still great as the over-the-top anti-hero and the addition of some cool character actors keeps it from being a total waste of time but this script is seriously lacking. This one has "retread" written all over it. There is about as much of a difference in the stories as there is in the titles.

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A Joke?
When I first saw this film in the theaters, I really didn't like it. In fact, I was pretty let down! I had grown up with Escape From New York, and to my horror, John Carpenter remade his own film! I'm not kidding, REMADE it. Right down to Snake getting shot in the leg and limping for the last half of the film. Years later I revaluated my opinion. You can't make a film as corny as this on accident, especially if you're a veteran director like John Carpenter; It had to be done on purpose. I've read numerous interviews over the years and have found out two things, and I think these two things are the reason this film ended up the way it did. First, John Carpenter hates sequels. He never wanted to make sequels to his films. He never wanted a sequel to Halloween(let alone six! That's why he produced Halloween 3 which people hated so much, coz he was trying to take this series in a different direction and not retread the whole Michael Myers thing). I also understand that both Carpenter and Kurt Russell were under alot of studio pressure to make this film. I don't know what kind of favor Carpenter owed the studio, but he made this film. And my theory is that he made this film intentionally bad to say to the studio, "There, I made the stinking sequel you wanted, don't ask me to do it again!" I mean really, if he had wanted to make a sequel to Escape From New York, don't you think he would have struck while the iron was hot and made it at the height of the first film's success instead of waiting 15 years? Think about it. When I consider this scenario, I can watch Escape From L.A and have a good laugh thinking that John Carpenter may have played a big joke on the Hollywood studios. Really, there's no way Carpenter included that surfing scene with the intention of it being taken seriously. The film is just way too overblown, way too cheesy and obviously a carbon copy of the original to be anything other than a joke. Kurt may be older now, but he's actually still able to play Snake Plissken like it's 1980. The performance is great, it's just the film surrounding Kurt that's silly. Try watching it again and see what you think.