Escape From LA - BD Review

The relative asbsence of John Carpenter from the film scene in the past couple years heightens the aspect of a loss to simple B-fare guerilla filmmaking. The closest we see to this is within the personage of Robert Rodriguez who seemingly has now gone along the route of reinvigorating lost franchises. Despite the lacking box office of his later pictures, Carpenter had his own sense of dirty industrial entertainment which at times is lacking in recent cinema where everything has a sense of slick CG permutations. One of his last movies to date, a sequel to 1982's "Escape From New York" is a mix of darkness from the early 80s with a bit of camp. Despite Kurt Russell's intense progression of Snake, something seems dated about him in this movie. The new BD transfer shows CG still in its infancy but with all the pre-9/11 doomsday elements in play. The supporting characters all around Russell from Valeria Golino to Steve Buscemi to Stacy Keach play like a greatest hits album. The problem is that everything seems truly staged without a sense of humor. It doesn't come off as funny like it might have backed in the 80s. In this picture, which was made in 1996, it simply seems cynical. Granted surfing with Peter Fonda down the Wilshire Corridor is an interesting visual but ultimately Snake's takedown of the moral right in the form of a President bent on a type of utopia seems anti-climactic in a redundant way. The extras are simply a trailer where the aspects that Rodriguez tried to do years later with "Grindhouse" had a precursor in Carpenter's mind. Like Corman before him, Carpenter had a sense of a certain time but sometimes life can outrun its maker. Out of 5, I give the "Escape From LA" BD a 2.