Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Escape from L.A. Blu-ray Movie Review

Escape to a better Blu-ray experience.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 30, 2010

You may have escaped from New York, but this is L.A.

A legendary director. A follow-up to a favorite cult classic. A star-studded ensemble cast. What could possibly go wrong? Chapter skip to a random spot in Escape From L.A., press "play," and find out. A mess from beginning to end, Escape From L.A. proves to be a herky-jerky, poorly-structured, stylistically confused, lazy, no-fun, haphazard monstrosity that barely recalls the greatness of its predecessor. In fact, other than Kurt Russell's presence in front of the camera, it's hard to see this as an honest-to-goodness followup to John Carpenter's 1981 movie; it certainly plays out more like a fan flick with a fair bit of money behind it, but whether taking into account the lame script, insipid action scenes, poor special effects, or dull characters -- even Snake Plissken endures some painfully bad lines and scenes -- there's little here that resembles Escape From New York, let alone a legitimate Hollywood Action/Sci-Fi movie.

Maybe the film should have been called 'Escape From Blocky Backgrounds and Bad Special Effects.'

By the year 1998, Los Angeles had become a bastion of immorality. A U.S. Presidential candidate (Cliff Robertson) predicts a massive earthquake will, at the turn of the century, remove the city from the U.S. proper. He's proven right, and the Constitution is amended to allow him to rule for life. His first act as lifetime President is to quarantine the now-island of Los Angeles and proclaim it separate from the new Moral America that he's created. All undesirables are sent to live and fend for themselves in the remains of the City of Angels, but when the President's daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), hijacks Air Force Three, she demands those people wrongfully accused be set free and threatens to unleash the powers of a mysterious black box should her wishes not be met. Her escape pod has crashed somewhere inside Los Angeles, but the President is only concerned about retrieving the technology in her possession. The notorious criminal Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, The Thing) -- convicted of no less than 27 moral crimes -- is injected with a slow-working poison and forced to retrieve the black box at all costs. Inside, he must face the dangerous ringleader of L.A.'s largest and most powerful gang, Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), with whom Utopia has allied herself.

Whatever fun factor that might have existed within Escape From L.A. could have stemmed from the fact that the movie is so bad that it almost captures a certain magic whereby the total insanity of everything -- from the downright goofy characters to the grossly ineffective computer-generated special effects that don't prove all that superior to those found in The Last Starfighter -- might have elevated the movie from "outright awful" to "cheesy good time." Unfortunately, however, Escape From L.A. just doesn't work as an entertaining time waster because where it tries to go right -- as in not playing things completely straight -- it manages to instead go terribly wrong. The movie never employs a seriously rigid, no-nonsense tone; one look at Buscemi's or Grier's characters, not to mention the obviously extra-stiff performances from several others that play a prominent role back on the mainland, say that much, but the picture as a whole still plays out with a bit too much of a rough-and-tumble, gruff tone to truly capture the essence of the tongue-in-cheek experience. Never going quite far enough over the top but choosing not to play it completely straight, Escape From L.A. ultimately finds some awkward middle ground between "straight" and "deliberately excessive" that manages to cripple the movie no matter through which of those two lenses one happens to view it.

Escape From L.A. works up a frenzy at the beginning by cramming a couple of decades worth of would-be U.S. history into about five minutes of screentime in order to set up a terribly basic plot: retrieve a black box from what was once Los Angeles. It can be sensory overload in a movie that doesn't need such an extensive background, but that's just the first of many flubs throughout the picture. Perhaps the oddest part about Escape From L.A., however, lies in its confusion as to what, exactly, it wants to be. As noted above, it's neither all that serious nor sufficiently over-the-top to really fall into either category, and the picture's efforts at satire, similarly, fall into some strange vacuum whereby it's easy to tell that the movie want to say, well, something, but it never really pins its intentions down. Rather than slyly manage to comment on power grabs, zealotry, plastic surgery, people that "live or die" with their sports, or even the Hollywood scene in general, Escape From L.A. simply seems to be happy with superficially making fun of each one -- the plastic surgery bit in particular -- by forcing them into the story rather that subtly and slickly integrating them into the plot. Only the whacked-out POTUS character really comes close to reinforcing any of the movie's supposed points, but once the conclusion rolls around and the movie shows a hint of thematic relevance, it's far too late to matter.

Stylistically, Director John Carpenter manages to find a balance between an early-80s and mid-90s tone that allows for the picture to recall its roots while at the same time offering something that's a bit more up-to-date. For instance, Carpenter retains a synth-heavy score for the picture's theme that's pretty much the same as that from Escape From New York with only a bit more weight and activity to it. The technology as seen throughout the film is slicker but not quite as streamlined as even that which audiences might have expected of a futuristic film from 1996. Unfortunately, the picture's costume and set designs seem a bit too far outdated; parts of the film even go so far as to hint at something like The Omega Man; while it's not that cheesy, the post-apocalyptic-style tone, off-kilter characters, and unconvincing sets -- even those that seem to span large areas and go well off into the distance -- give the picture something of a cheap feel. With a reported $50,000,000 budget, it's hard to tell exactly where the money went; Escape From L.A. doesn't look anywhere near $50,000,000 good, and even the cast -- which features some relatively big names including Peter Fonda in a rather superfluous role -- couldn't have cost that much. Unfortunately, the film only recouped about half its budget in gross domestic ticket sales.

Escape from L.A. Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Escape from L.A. lumbers onto Blu-ray with a passable but far from pristine 1080p, 2.35:1-framed transfer. The picture's brighter opening segments reveal good detailing and color reproduction, but the bulk of the movie takes place in darkened locales where there's less opportunity for bright and lively visuals. The 1080p picture only accentuates the obviously fake backgrounds, special effects, and sets -- sometimes to a visually distracting fault -- but it's a small tradeoff for the increased resolution yielded by the Blu-ray transfer. Even in darker scenes, the transfer can reveal some good detailing -- Snake's scruffy facial hair or the worn leather jacket he wears as the film opens -- but the movie can and often does appear flat and lifeless, sometimes leaving faces looking a bit pasty. However, it does retain a very slight layer of film grain throughout. Additionally, backgrounds are often soft, sometimes downright fuzzy and blurred in several shots. Black levels are consistently deep and dark but occasionally overwhelm the image and overcome finer details. The print is in relatively good condition, exhibiting only a few random speckles that don't represent much cause for concern. Escape From L.A. is far from a pristine transfer, but it effectively gets the job done in most instances.

Escape from L.A. Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Escape From L.A.'s Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack does a fair job, but it's not up to par when compared alongside some of the better, reference-quality Blu-ray presentations. Sound effects swoop from the sides and into the center of the soundstage during the opening credit sequence, bringing a fair amount clarity, a good surround presence, and some heft to the proceedings. The track's high point comes during the apocalyptic destruction of Los Angeles near the beginning of the film; buildings seem to crumble around the listener, and accompanied by some potent bass, this lossless mix creates a chilling sensation that's not a poster child for clarity and realism, but it suits the material and the experience very well. The track makes good use of the back speakers throughout; nothing in the track is particularly engulfing and there are no seamless atmospherics, but it's a decent enough surround presentation. Unfortunately, most effects seem underpowered; a motorcycle chase lacks much heft or energy, and while gunfire occasionally echoes nicely and spills from the back channels, it more often than not lacks that seamless, powerful, and crisp presentation of the more powerful sound effects that define the superior Action movie tracks. Additionally, dialogue is often shallow and underpowered, clear to be sure but lacking in presence. Audio enthusiasts aren't going to use this track as demo material, but casual listeners will most likely be pleased with what it has to offer.

Escape from L.A. Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Escape from L.A. theatrical trailer (1080p, 1:33) is the only extra on this disc.

Escape from L.A. Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

John Carpenter has had his fair share of misfires in recent years -- Ghosts of Mars, Vampires, Village of the Damned -- but Escape from L.A. is quite possibly the worst of them all. The director's last good movie was arguably the ultra-cheesy They Live from all the way back in 1988, but where that film works so well with its tongue planted, taped, glued, stapled, whatever-ed in cheek, Escape From L.A. proves just the opposite. It's a preposterous mess not because it's unbelievable or dated, but because it's just lame, poorly-executed, repetitive, dry, and boring. While the movie never employs a wholly serious tone -- that might be its one saving grace -- it's not as playfully entertaining or even in the least bit memorable as was They Live or even Escape From New York. Caprenter's got talent, no question about that; how about a third-time's-the-charm, once-more-into-the-breach with the series, say, Escape From Miami; use that Cuban invasion that was underway at the end of L.A. as a springboard. If Harrison Ford can once more pull off Indiana Jones, so too can Russell for one final go-round get back in his "Snake skin." Unfortunately, fans will be disappointed with Paramount's Blu-ray release. It features a lackluster technical presentation and no supplements that can't be found by typing "Escape From L.A. trailer" into YouTube. This one is best enjoyed as a rental.