Escape From New York.

Escape From New York was apparently a big influence on Lockout according to critics, I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid and since I loved Lockout, I thought it'd be worth checking out. Plus it creates a sort of balance of me reviewing sci-fi classics between new releases. Enjoy!

You know you have certain expectations when you go into a film knowing it is a Sci-Fi classic staring Kurt Russell and is directed by the legendary John Carpenter, you know before the 90's happened and he stopped making good films...

Despite seeming like a trashy B-Movie EFNY was written with a little bit of political intent. This was Carpenter's reaction to the Watergate Scandal. Although it would seem it only really got released on the back of the success that was Halloween, almost ten years after Carpenter had written it.

Despite these kind of films normally taking a trashing from critics, EFNY was actually successful at the time of  its release and its popularity has only grown over the years. The film has been criticised for the limitations doing a B-Movie can impose but critics claimed Carpenter did well with what he had. Kurt Russell was praised as Snake Plissken , the films use of paranoia has been applauded and for providing just all round great escapism. And hell, if it wasn't for this movie, we might never have had Metal Gear Solid...or erm, Cloverfield...

And what do I think? Well let's dig into Escape From New York!

The whole of EFNY can simply be summed up with, 'why'. The best way to make a silly film work is to roll with it, when you try and put logic to something completely devoid of it, it just makes you notice how stupid it is.

Basically with American crime out of control, in 1988 the government turns their favourite place into a prison for the entire country...for some reason. We've got fifty foot walls, armed guards, choppers and mines all surrounding Manhattan Island. There are however, for some reason, no guards on the inside, leaving the prisoners to make what they will of New York. Logic? It is all bound by one simple rule, once you go in - you don't come out.

Skipping ahead nine years it would seem this super prison has been a success. Yay! Well that is until the 'Soldiers of the National Liberation Front of America' come and fuck it up, fucking moralfags, why must you ruin everything? This then leads to a scene which made me cringe, it's basically 9/11, twenty years earlier, Carpenter musta felt extra bad when those planes hit...any way the President ends up right in the middle of the prison with with the fate of the world in the balance! Did Lockout rip this movie off? Undoubtedly. With some hints that BioShock may have pinched a little for itself too.

Kurt Russell plays Snake Pilssken who is basically a huge fucking badass with an eyepatch - not that the movie gives him much chance to really cement this with some of the worst action I've ever seen. Gorn, eat your heart out. He was a soldier, a fucking good one at that and is in prison because...reasons I guess. He is offered a pardon for all of his criminal actions (well the ones committed on US soil) if he rescues the President within twenty four hours. At first Snake's mission seems fairly simple, since the president has a tracker, only when Snake follows it, he finds the tracker is no longer on the president himself and has 18 hours to try and find the president blind. Oh and also apparently Snake is like some kind of criminal Elvis as basically everyone he meets in prison knows him. It feels like I'm watching a sequel to a movie I haven't seen.

The only other character probably worth a mention is 'The Duke' the main antagonist of the piece and the ruler of the prison. I think if he was any more racially stereotyped, he'd literally go nuclear. I mean nothing says threatening, quite like shitty sedans with chandeliers and hydraulics and an army of hipsters. Instead of the Duke they should have called him 'Tumblr'.

I don't know if they were trying to present a dark future with like all this imperialism or whatever but I didn't care...the prisoners of the US get their own city to do with as they please, that doesn't sound like much of a punishment if you ask me, especially as it's Manhattan Island as opposed to somewhere with more tornadoes or floods or just somewhere not good.

Escape From New York is a beautiful movie, the post apocalyptic looking New York is just a brilliant setting but once again the setting is just plagued with 'why'. Why is Manhattan so empty? If America's crime rate really rose by 400% and the entire countries criminals are here, why isn't the place overflowing? Especially as there are women in there too, are they controlling breeding? Otherwise the prison would be overpopulated in a matter of years, with new prisoners coming in and babies being born. And why is the place so shitty? The criminals have basically been given a fresh start, they have to live there, so why wouldn't they keep it nice? I thought American's liked New York! What is with the crazy people who live underground and come out at night? I mean what are they crazy or vampires? I know they said they have steam power and so on, but why does some dumb old man have a working vehicle, why has no one tried to steal it? The Duke? How the hell do you become king of the criminals? THIS FILM HURTS.

And by God the pacing! The plot is so desperate to get in as much as possible and try and convince itself that it isn't really, really stupid that it keeps stumbling on itself to the point where you wish this was two films because this film is almost completely exposition which merely surrounds, rather than directly impacts the movie.

If I was going to praise anything, I'd praise Carpenter. There is some bad staging but he creates a great atmosphere, the film is dotted with tense and horror like moments.

Overall though, EFNY's biggest sin is that it is just so goddamn boring. We have maybe what, five action scenes throughout the whole film? Which are just normally lowkey chase sequences. Even when actual fighting does happen, it's on such a small scale and is very clunkily edited and badly choreographed, the film just feels so insanely dated and cheap.

So do I recommend it? EFNY is proof you need more than a cool central character and an interesting setting to make a good film. As I can't travel back thirty years I can't honestly argue how much the popularity of the film is simple nostalgia and how much of the failings of the movie are simply through age. But I know that staging and pacing are timeless and it gets both of them wrong. EFNY is cheap, clunky, nonsensical boredom - a waste of an awesome central character and a great setting. Shame.

Think About It!

-Locke