Review of Escape from New York (1981) by Vince K — 13 Feb 2010

Escape from New York is considered a cult-classic, as well as one of the best John Carpenter movies, and a remake is currently being planned. Who the hell is going to play Snake Plissken though? Christ, in this day and age it will probably be some faggot like Taylor Lautner or Channing Tatum.

Snake Plissken is probably the character Kurt Russell is best remembered for. He's pretty awesome, I guess, but he sure isn't Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. A critically-panned sequel to this came out in 1996, "Escape From L.

A.". The movie was completely horrible/totally awesome as fuck (I loved Bruce Campbell as the "Surgeon General of Los Angeles", and Steve Buscemi of course.) I found it to be way more entertaining than this one and I think it had better special effects as well, no matter how cheesy the CGI was.

The simple special effects did work pretty well though in the '80s. I always loved the background matte paintings of the skyline (a ravaged Manhattan, w/ the Twin Towers still standing, looks amazing.

) This Matt guy was pretty fucking busy in the '80s with all these paintings. Escape from New York has pretty much the same storyline as the sequel, making the 2nd installment a rip-off or remake in itself.

The island of Manhattan is the main prison in America, after crime rose 400% in the late '80s. Taking place in the future in 1997, the President is kidnapped on the island, and the police hire former war hero/current criminal Snake Plissken to go in and save him.

Just like in the sequel, they give him a time-released poison that will kill him in 24 hours, as an incentive to get the job done. Escape from New York features a pretty killer cast, including Adrienne Barbeau, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Donald Pleasance, and immortal vampire Ernest Borgnine.

Although great, the cast of the sequel was even better. Escape from New York kind of plods along slowly, with exciting things happening not-so-often. The prison island of Manhattan is ravaged, but turns out to be not as interesting a setting as the post-earthquake Los Angeles of the sequel.

A lot of the villains look like total fags and hobos. And Snake Plissken doesn't really kick as much ass as I thought he would. All-in-all Escape from New York seems seriously outdated, but must have been amazing for it's time.

Hats off to Carpenter for naming two of the characters Cronenberg and Romero though.