Review of Escape from New York (1981) by Wesseldj — 10 Oct 2020

I was expecting some crossover between Madmax and Big Trouble in little China or even had hopes with glimpse of glory to the likes of Running Man. Had my popcorn and beer ready for some hell of a crazy 80s retro action flick ride.

However the story and execution of this movie were poorly lacking. Most of the time you don't know what is really going on. The humor was a bit off. And the oneliners didn't really matter much. The characters were flat and the different factions and gangs in the forsaken barren depiction of New York Manhattan City weren't explained and weren't fleshed out. You just didn't care much about them all. There weren't even that many of New York landmarks to make this movie a worthwhile watch, this movie could have been filmed anywhere else, it didn't made it feel like explicitly New York, which is a shame.

The actions were bland and lacked inspiration. And overall it was trying too hard to be something, but failed at it. Even for a B-movie this was badly executed and an abomination of a film. I would not even recommend this for nostalgia sake, it leaves a bitter after taste that can only be forgotten by washing down with some couple cans of more beer......