Escape from L.A. (1996)

Snake Plissken is once again called in by the United States government to recover a potential doomsday device from Los Angeles, now an autonomous island where undesirables are deported.

Director:

John Carpenter

Writers:

John Carpenter (characters), Nick Castle (characters),

Stars:

Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi, Peter Fonda

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kurt Russell	...	Snake Plissken
Steve Buscemi	...	Map to the Stars Eddie
Peter Fonda	...	Pipeline
Cliff Robertson	...	President
Valeria Golino	...	Taslima
Stacy Keach	...	Cmdr. Malloy
Pam Grier	...	Hershe Las Palmas
Bruce Campbell	...	Surgeon General of Beverly Hills
Georges Corraface	...	Cuervo Jones (as George Corraface)
Michelle Forbes	...	Brazen
A.J. Langer	...	Utopia
Ina Romeo	...	Hooker
Peter Jason	...	Duty Sergeant
Jordan Baker	...	Police Anchor
Caroleen Feeney	...	Woman on Freeway

Storyline

The year is 2013 and Snake Plissken is back but this time it's L.A., which through the agency of earthquakes has become an island of the damned. But something has gone wrong in this new moral order, because the President's daughter has absconded to L.A. with a detonation device, and Snake is commandeered to retrieve it. But just below the surface there is a coiled Snake ready to strike.

---

Plot Keywords:

island | escape | earthquake | terrorist | virus | 

---

Taglines:

The man with the patch has escaped N.Y., try L.A. in the apocalypse

---

Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and some language

Details

Official Sites:

JohnCarpenter - movie site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 August 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.

Filming Locations:

Courthouse Square, Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

JPY 9,040,640 (Japan) (29 November 1996)

Gross:

JPY 131,401,000 (Japan) (6 December 1996)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures, Rysher Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Snake's line to Malloy near the end of the movie, "got a smoke?" is the same line that Napoleon Wilson says repeatedly in John Carpenter's other film 'Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)'.

---

Goofs

No matter what the technology, an electromagnetic pulse will not damage a battery, as is claimed in the film.

---

Quotes

[repeated line]
Taslima: I thought you'd be taller.

---

Connections

Referenced in Dead to Rights (2002)

---

Soundtracks

"Dawn"
By Christopher Hall, Jim Sellers, Walter Flakus & Andy Kubiszewski
Performed by Stabbing Westward
Courtesy of Columbia Records

User Reviews

Less of a sequel; more of a remake

This movie is what would've happened if Carpenter had just left Escape from New York as a stand alone. It would've been remade into a hyped-up overkill Hollywood remake.

But instead, he did it himself. I love this movie, it doesn't take itself seriously like Escape from New York did. People who loved Snake's camp in New York will love this. People who loved Snake for his bad-ass charm and the creepy moments in New York wont be as pleased.

Snake's a regular action-here in LA. One-Liner's and angry sneers all the way. And the creepiness has been replaced with campiness... this is essentially a polished B-movie.

Gotta love the villains. With a main baddie who looks like Che Gueverra, where can you go wrong? Okay, so the rest of the characters are extremely ridiculous (Map to the Stars Eddie, Hershey Carmichael, Bruce Campbell as the Surgeon General) but who cares? This movie isn't meant to be serious. It's meant to be a ridiculous laugh-out loud film.

This film was just the tip of Carpenter's sarcastic action movies. Vampires and Ghosts of Mars followed.