Watched Escape From New York recently for the first time, loved it! Carpenter did not disappoint with a B-movie that while slightly tongue in cheek also took itself seriously enough to deliver some great action scenes and real scares. Also loved the uh twist at the end. Great score too, whole film had the feel of a kind of dream or nightmare. There was one slightly out of tone sequence with the wrestler but that is small criticism.
Escape From L.A. the sequel, good god! It is like a spoof of the first movie, and very unfunny at that. Goofy celebrity cameos, has the absolute wrong tone for a sequel to EFNY and the topical jokes fall totally flat. They even repeat the twist ending:rolleyes:
This would be like if Empire Strikes Back was a spoof of Star Wars, with a sequence where Vader is offered an asthma inhaler.
I think this is one movie that had I seen it in theaters, I would have walked out on it!
Anyone know why Carpenter would well go goofy, totally against his usual style?
EDIT:Also hated the repeat of the first movies plot, off the top of my head Escape From America where Snake is trying to escape a post nuclear war USA would have been better.
I love EFNY, but I do kinda balk at then ending. So Snake destroys the tape with the superweapon data, which, according to the President, was going to end the war. So, does that mean the war continues? Is Snake consigning the USA and the Soviets (I assume. Remember Leningrad, Harold?) to years more of fighting, with possible nuclear bombs?
But I am with you on EFLA. It was really like a re-do of EFNY. It wasn’t a sequel, really, at all. But, stupider. In this case, Snake condemns the US, and possibly the rest of the world, to a life without electrical machinery. Does he care he’s going to cause massive suffering and death? Why? Just because?
And I did pay good money to see it in the theater when it was new. Hated it from about the first half hour on, but kept with it, hoping it would get better. But every scene was like some untalented Jr high version of EFNY. It got the superficial resemblance, but the heart was missing.
Funny, I just finished EFNY this morning and am about 25% through EFLA. Glad I saw this thread today.
EFLA came out when I was 10. I lived down the road from a small movie theater and could pay $2.50 to go watch it (and that included popcorn and soda…hah!) - I did so at least 3 or 4 times. As a kid, I loved it. Also, please understand that our theater only showed 2 movies at a time, and there was nothing else to do after 7 pm really.
My dad told me about EFNY after I watched the sequel, which was kind of odd because I had seen the sequel without really learning it was a sequel. We rented it from the video store and it was great. After seeing it, I was much less impressed with Escape From Los Angeles.
I was raised on a large number of post-apocalypse style movies. Escape from New York is probably one of my very favorites still. I think part of the problem with LA is exactly what was pointed out in the OP - the plot is basically a repeat, including the twist at the end. Although special effects had come a bit further by the release of LA, it felt like there was a reliance on it more than story. As a kid, I didn’t notice that, but watching it as an adult it has become rather painfully obvious.
And yet it is 53% at Rotten Tomatoes, 57% among top critics. 40% of the audience reported liking it. It is uncommon for an action film to be better liked by critics than audiences.
EFNY is 83/67/77.
EFNY was good until the ending. The word was so bad for EFLA that I never watched it.
I love Escape From New York and find it great that just about everyone loves it too (even the stuffiest of critics). I liked the ending even though (as others said) it means more years of war and possibly WW3. Nonetheless, the ending does fit with the movie’s “screw it all” mentality.
As for “Escape From Hollywood”? Oh yeah this one is a real stinker!! :mad:
Someone rented it and I barely watched a few minutes of it.
Bruce Campbell as the “Surgeon General of Beverly Hills” was the one bright spot in this cinematic clunker. But this movie needed a LOT more.
I think “Escape From New York” had people expecting that “Escape From Hollywood” was going to be another action film fun fest, but this only added to the wretchedness of the sequel. :mad:
And Ernest Borgnine, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, and the inimitable Lee Van Cleef.
Escape from L.A. was like a concocted film school example of what not to do in a sequel. Everything about it was terrible. Even Kurt Russell–a usually solid actor who can carry an otherwise lame movie by personality alone–couldn’t save it, and clearly wasn’t even trying. And Carpenter himself was on a nose dive from Cronenberg-esque quasi-schlock-horror cult status to a director of pictures even Roger Corman would pass on.
“New York” is far superior, but I don’t think either it or “Los Angeles” are intended to be high art. I have both on DVD, and while NY gets more play than LA, both are great fun.
EFNY has a shittier look to it which fits New York… especially the contemporary New York of the time the movie came out. There’s some pretty silly shit in EFNY (wrestling ring baseball bat fight with Ox Baker?)
EFLA is just a lot of that same mindset, just transported to what makes sense for LA.
My chief gripe about EFLA is that it’s less a sequel than a remake, like Blues Brothers 2000 was. The sentimental appeal of delayed sequels is seeing what has happened to the character over time, rather than a fresh run over the same gags.
And consider the ending! Smoke all the American Spirit cigarettes you want, Snake, you ain’t ever gonna get another pack! When you pushed that button, you ushered in the Emberverse!
