John Carpenter's 'Escape from LA' Works Because It's So Entertaining

 Throughout the history of film, there are few directors who have the right to the title as king of their genre. John Ford dominated westerns, Mel Brooks ran away with comedies, and John Carpenter claimed the crown as the king of horror. The man has directed twenty-one feature films, eleven of which are horror (or at least horror adjacent). He didn’t invent the genre, but he certainly popularized the slasher craze that took the world by storm for decades with the release of 1978’s Halloween.

From there, he would go on to make other horror films like The Fog, In the Mouth of Madness, and The Thing, his masterpiece. Throughout a prolific career, the director did not only direct horror films. Carpenter would leave his mark on many genres - sci-fi, comedy, thriller, and action. Behind Halloween and The Thing, what is probably seen as Carpenter’s most beloved film is Escape from New York. The 1981 dystopian sci-fi action classic doesn’t exactly have the most thrilling sequences ever put to screen, but it is just about one of the coolest movies ever made. The film makes for an amazing elevator pitch, has a cold as ice tone, and is led by the most badass actor to ever play the game with Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken. Escape rules, so needless to say, fans in the 90s were ecstatic when word got out that an L.A.-based sequel was on the way. What came to pass though was a complete and total misfire, one that is so confident in its stupidity that it is impossible to have a bad time.

It’s hard to find a Carpenter film to be brutally devoid of fun or entertainment. The man isn’t setting out to make pretentious drivel, he aims to provide commercial movies for a wide audience. Enter Escape from LA, a movie that strives to be the most badass action movie on the planet, yet fumbles the ball so incredibly hard that you wonder if it did so on purpose.

What Works About 'Escape from L.A.'?

To start with the out-and-out positives, Kurt Russell still rocks as Snake. It’s like he walked off the set on the last day of New York and onto day one of L.A. This sequel was released 16 years after the original. You might come in expecting an accidental parody in his performance of the Snake character, but against all odds, the man lands it. He acts as a perfect composite of early 80s action archetype tossed into a bizarre 90s wasteland. And even after all this time, Snake remains forever angry. However, he seems more annoyed than anything this time around, almost like a fish out of water amongst all the cheesiness around him. Sure, Snake is a bit of a cheesy character himself, but he’s a character that will always continue to work as long as Russell is in the role. In this current era of bringing back legacy characters, it might be a real blast seeing him back on the saddle one more time.

Expectations Matter When Watching 'Escape from L.A.'

So the lead of L.A. works, does anything else? It totally depends on the way you come at the film. If you watch it expecting a film with the exact same tone and execution as its predecessor, you’re bound to be disappointed. Escape from New York has some hoaky dialogue, over the top characters, middling special effects, but it works through and through as a perfect product of its time. Its sequel is a product of its time, but in the ways that things in the 90s could be so lame and totally charming all at once. The costumes are a crock pot of different eras in search of a cool new look, the soundtrack is way too on the nose, and the dialogue is its own brand of cringe-worthy cheese. It’s at that tacky point where filmmakers leaned in to the convenience of CGI and green screen way too heavily. Unless you had the best of the best working on your movie, your film’s visuals would age like expired milk. That being said, L.A.’s sheer confidence in itself is so strong that when Snake is surfing on a massive CG wave in pursuit of Eddie' (Steve Buscemi) car, you can’t help but laugh and get wrapped up in the moment.

The film has a star studded cast with Peter Fonda, Steve Buscemi, Pam Grier, Cliff Robertson, and many more at its disposal. Even Bruce Campbell has a bit of an extended cameo! In return, the audience is delivered performances that are all kinds of wild, nearing nap time, or just flat out misused. Like many elements in the movie, the many supporting actors and glorified cameos are sort of amazing no matter how good or bad they are. Almost everyone feels like they were directed by a different director. Peter Fonda is going full goof-fest, Steve Buscemi just got out of a bed on the set of a 30s comedy, and Bruce Campbell plays a maniacal surgeon that’s kind of… boring? It’s one of the movie’s only surefire mishaps. Campbell is one of genre cinema’s most beloved actor and is known for his physical performances, but here, he’s totally dialed back and made unrecognizable under heaps of makeup. It’s strange, but so is this movie, so it adds up. L.A. is also a blast to watch with other movie loving friends. It gives you plenty of familiar faces to spot, then laugh in bewilderment at the strange nature of each of the performances.