Escape from L.A.

Escape from L.A.
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Carpenter
Written by	John Carpenter Debra Hill Kurt Russell
Based on	Characters created by John Carpenter Nick Castle
Produced by	Debra Hill Kurt Russell
Starring	Kurt Russell Stacy Keach Steve Buscemi Peter Fonda Georges Corraface Cliff Robertson Pam Grier
Cinematography	Gary B. Kibbe
Edited by	Edward A. Warschilka
Music by	John Carpenter Shirley Walker
Production company	Rysher Entertainment
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	August 9, 1996 (1996-08-09)[1]
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million[2]
Box office	$25.5 million[2]

Escape from L.A. (stylized on-screen as John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.) is a 1996 American post-apocalyptic action film co-written, co-scored, and directed by John Carpenter, co-written and produced by Debra Hill and Kurt Russell, with Russell also starring as Snake Plissken. A sequel to Escape from New York, Escape from L.A. co-stars Steve Buscemi, Stacy Keach, Bruce Campbell, and Pam Grier. The film received a mixed reception and was a box-office bomb,^[3] but gained a strong cult following.^[4]

Plot[]

In 1998, Los Angeles has become immensely crime-ridden and decadent, ultimately being directly governed and patrolled by the recently created United States Police Force. Two years later, on August 23, 2000, a massive earthquake strikes the city, the San Fernando Valley floods, and the Los Angeles area turns into an island from Malibu to Anaheim. A theocratic presidential candidate declares Los Angeles to be sinful and punished by God.

When he is elected president for life, the capital is relocated to his hometown in Lynchburg, Virginia; meanwhile, he turns the United States into a theocratic totalitarian state, and declares that anyone not conforming to the new "Moral America" laws that he creates, which ban such things as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, red meat, firearms, profanity, atheism, non-Christian religions, and extramarital sex will be stripped of their citizenship and deported to Los Angeles Island unless they repent and choose death by electrocution. A containment wall is built around the island, armed guards and watchtowers are posted, and those sent to the island are exiled permanently.

In 2013, Cuervo Jones, a Shining Path Peruvian Revolutionary, seduces the president's daughter, Utopia, via a holographic system and brainwashes her into stealing her father's remote control to the "Sword of Damocles" super weapon, a satellite system capable of rendering all electronic devices anywhere on the planet useless, which the president intends to use to destroy US enemies' ability to function and eventually dominate the world. Utopia escapes Air Force Three and lands on Los Angeles Island to join with Cuervo.

Now controlling the satellites, Cuervo promises to take back the United States with an allied invasion force of third world nations that are prepared to attack, claiming that if the president tries to stop him, he will "pull the plug" on the country and black out the capital, and that he also knows the secret world code that can knock out power for the entire planet.

Captured for another series of crimes, Snake Plissken is scheduled for exile to the island. Upon arriving for deportation, Snake meets the president, who offers him the mission of retrieving the weapon and says he will give him a full pardon if he is successful, but indicates he does not care about Utopia's return, declaring her a traitor. To ensure his compliance, Snake is infected with the man-made Plutoxin 7 virus that will kill him within 10 hours; upon completing the mission, he will receive the cure.

Carrying an assault rifle, a personal holographic projector, a thermal-camouflage overcoat, and a countdown clock, Snake sneaks into the city using a one-man submarine that he loses when the platform it lands on crumbles, causing it to sink. While exploring the island, Snake meets "Map to the Stars" Eddie, a swindler who sells interactive tours. Along the way, Snake is helped by surfing enthusiast Pipeline; Taslima, a woman deported for her Muslim faith; and Hershe Las Palmas (formerly Carjack Malone), a transgender woman and past criminal associate of Snake.

Snake defeats Cuervo at his staging area of the Happy Kingdom by the Sea in Anaheim and takes the remote control. Snake and Eddie leave the island with Utopia and some other Cuervo resistors in a helicopter, from which Eddie shoots Cuervo, who manages to fire a rocket launcher at the chopper before dying. After jumping out of the helicopter and landing on an awning, Eddie demands that Snake return, but the chopper flies away without him. When the rocket hits the chopper and kills everyone inside, including Hershe, Snake and Utopia escape before it crashes into a mountain.

When the president's men reach the crash site, Commander Malloy believes that Snake is trying to trick the president by giving him the wrong remote and proceeds to find another one on Utopia. After checking the disc inside, Commander Malloy announces that they will take the one that Utopia unknowingly held. The president then has his men take Utopia to the electric chair despite her pleas for forgiveness. Snake remains alive even after his countdown clock reaches zero, realizing that Plutoxin 7 is only a potent influenza virus whose effects wear off within hours of infection. The president tries to use the satellites to stop a Cuban invasion force threatening Florida. Activating the remote, he hears only Eddie's "Map to the Stars" intro over "I Love L.A."

The president orders Snake's execution, but because Snake previously activated his hologram projector, his hologram self is shot. Snake activates the real control device, entering the world code and ending all technological activity on the planet, against pleas to stop. At the deportation center, Utopia rejoices that Snake shut down the Earth and thus saved her. Snake lights a cigarette and blows out the match used to light it, uttering, "Welcome to the human race."

Cast[]

Production[]

Development and writing[]

The film was in development for over 10 years. At one point, a script was commissioned in 1987 and was written by screenwriter Coleman Luck, with Dino De Laurentiis's company producing. Carpenter later described the script as "too light, too campy".^[5] In time, Carpenter and Kurt Russell got together to write with their long-time collaborator Debra Hill. Carpenter insists that Russell's persistence allowed the film to be made, since "Snake Plissken was a character he loved and wanted to play again."^[6]

Music[]

Soundtrack[]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[7]

1. "Dawn" – Stabbing Westward
2. "Sweat" – Tool
3. "The One" – White Zombie
4. "Cut Me Out" – Toadies
5. "Pottery" – Butthole Surfers
6. "10 Seconds Down" – Sugar Ray
7. "Blame (L.A. Remix)" – Gravity Kills
8. "Professional Widow" – Tori Amos
9. "Paisley" – Ministry
10. "Fire in the Hole" – Orange 9mm
11. "Escape from the Prison Planet" – Clutch
12. "Et Tu Brute?" – CIV
13. "Foot on the Gas" – Sexpod
14. "Can't Even Breathe" – Deftones

Score[]

The film's score has been released twice, the first on both CD and cassette by Milan Records in 1996 and again as an expanded CD release by specialty label La-La Land Records in 2014 that featured pieces of music that were recorded for but ultimately cut from the film.^[8]

Release[]

Home media[]

The film was released on Blu-ray on May 4, 2010.^[9]

Reception[]

Box office[]

Escape from L.A. grossed $25,477,365 from its $50 million budget, about as much as its predecessor but little more than half its significantly higher budget.^[2]

Critical response[]

The film received mixed reviews and has a 53% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 reviews, with an average score of 5.57/10. The site's consensus reads: "Escape from L.A. has its moments, although it certainly suffers in comparison to the cult classic that preceded it".^[10] Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of a possible four and wrote that the movie felt it was an attempt to satirize the genre while exploiting it: "[Escape from L.A.] has such manic energy, such a weird, cockeyed vision, that it may work on some moviegoers as satire and on others as the real thing."^[11]

Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote, "A cartoonish, cheesy, and surprisingly campy apocalyptic actioner, John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. is spiked with a number of funny and anarchic ideas, but doesn't begin to pull them together into a coherent whole."^[12]

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly rated it C+ and wrote, "Carpenter never was the filmmaker his cult claimed him to be, but in Escape From L.A., he at least has the instinct to keep his hero moving, like some leather-biker Candide."^[13]

Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that the film's in-jokes "go a long way toward keeping afloat a hopelessly choppy adventure spoof that doesn't even to try to match the ghoulish surrealism of its forerunner."^[14]

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "With much humor and high adventure, John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. brilliantly imagines a Dante-esque vision of the City of Angels."^[15]

Peter Stack of The San Francisco Chronicle rated it 3/4 stars and called it "dark, percussive and perversely fun."^[16] Esther Iverem of The Washington Post wrote that the film "tries but fails to be an action-hero flick or even a parody of one."^[17]

Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, "Loud, rollicking, alternately ultraviolent and hilarious, Escape from L.A. is Snake redux, and what more do you need, really?"^[18] Nigel Floyd of Time Out London wrote, "After 15 years of computer-generated effects, apocalyptic sci-fi and Arnie movies with flippant kiss-off lines, the sequel feels hackneyed and pointless."^[19] Kim Newman of Empire rated it 2/5 stars and wrote, "Apart from a few good characters, this is really not up to scratch in most departments especially the ludicrous plot."^[20]

In a 2013 retrospective, Alan Zilberman of The Atlantic called Snake Plissken "a pro-nostalgia antihero, disgusted by the world around him." While contrasting the film's then-futuristic plot elements against modern-day reality, Zilberman writes that the film's ending is more profound today, as Plissken would be annoyed by our fascination with technology, citing the example of two friends who ignore each other while transfixed with their smart phones.^[21]

John Carpenter later reflected:

Escape from L.A. is better than the first movie. Ten times better. It's got more to it. It's more mature. It's got a lot more to it. I think some people didn't like it because they felt it was a remake, not a sequel... I suppose it's the old question of whether you like Rio Bravo or El Dorado better? They're essentially the same movie. They both had their strengths and weaknesses. I don't know–you never know why a movie's going to make it or not. People didn't want to see Escape that time, but they really didn't want to see The Thing... You just wait. You've got to give me a little while. People will say, you know, what was wrong with me?^[22]

He reiterated his statement in another interview: "It is a better movie. It didn’t do what the first one did for some reason. Maybe it was too dark, too nihilistic. I don’t know. They didn’t dig it as much as the first one. It did okay, but it just wasn’t a hit."^[23]

Other media[]

Comic books[]

Marvel Comics released the one-shot The Adventures of Snake Plissken in January 1997.^[24] The story takes place sometime between Escape from New York and his famous Cleveland escape mentioned in Escape from L.A.. Snake has robbed Atlanta's Centers for Disease Control of some engineered metaviruses and is looking for buyers in Chicago. Finding himself in a deal that's really a set-up, he makes his getaway and exacts revenge on the buyer for ratting him out to the United States Police Force. In the meantime, a government lab has built a robot called ATACS (Autonomous Tracking And Combat System) that can catch criminals by imprinting their personalities upon its program in order to predict and anticipate a specific criminal's every move. The robot's first test subject is Snake. After a brief battle, ATACS copies Snake to the point of fully becoming his personality. Now recognizing the government as the enemy, ATACS sides with Snake. Snake punches the machine and destroys it, reasoning, "I don't need the competition."

Cancelled video game[]

An Escape from L.A. video game was announced for the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, Panasonic M2, and PC in 1996,^[25] but was later cancelled.

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Escape from L.A.

• Escape from L.A. at IMDb
• Escape from L.A. at AllMovie
• Escape from L.A. at the TCM Movie Database
• Escape from L.A. at Box Office Mojo
• Escape from L.A. at Rotten Tomatoes
• Escape from L.A. at theofficialjohncarpenter.com