It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

The film exults in its imagination of the greater Los Angeles area as a ruined metropolis, with the Santa Monica Freeway well underwater and the Universal Studios theme park beset by real sharks instead of the Spielberg variety. In the action climax, Disneyland--stripped of its familiar branding following a corporate bankruptcy--is invaded from the skies as Plissken drops in, gun blazing. (It's not the movie of a man who's entirely happy with the machinations of Hollywood studios.) Carpenter later said he wanted the scene to be reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, which figures. With its aggressively whimsical dream logic, the only way this movie really makes sense is if Snake wakes up in Kansas in the final reel.What's memorable are the film's gaudy visions of excess. Escape from L.A. has a brighter and more colorful look than the resolutely dim Escape from New York, which may have been a deliberate decision to embrace a sunny Southern California palette, though I'm guessing it also had something to do with the presence of cinematographer Gary Kibbe, rather than the wizard Dean Cundey, behind the camera. The friendlier look goes conceptually with the picture's more overtly jokey approach.Escape from L.A. is at least partially model-led on westerns-- Plissken is actually described at one point as a "gunfighter"-Pam Grier plays Hershe--it's pronounced like "Hershey," thus it's an insistent play on race as well as gender. See, Hershe is a trans-woman with hairy 'pits and an uncharacteristically deep voice who used to be a buddy of Snake's known as Carjack Malone. When Snake finds her, he gets in close, runs his hand up her thigh to her crotch and declares, "The more things change, the more they stay the same," before intimidating "Carjack" with the gun he found there. When she insists, "I'm no longer Carjack Malone," he hisses in response, "I don't give a f'ck what you are." Yes, Plissken has story reasons for threatening Hershe. But, absent that greater context, the film plays here exactly as though Snake is threatening a hate crime.The surprisingly character-driven script, too, wouldn't fly today. Rather than focus on elaborate set pieces and action sequences, Carpenter, Hill, and Russell give their actors ample time to talk and double-cross each other.The most satisfying payoff of seeing Escape From L.A. today is in realizing that 1996 imagined 2013 so as to fantasize about regressing.

Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) 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.John Carpenter insists that it was Russell's persistence that allowed the film to be made, since "Snake Plissken was a character he loved and wanted to play again".Commercially, the film flopped and critically it was mixed. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars (which seems absurd), while Kim Newman of rated it 2/5 stars and wrote, "Apart from a few good characters, this is really not up to scratch in most departments especially the ludicrous plot." Newman is definitely more accurate. This film is far too cheesy to even be associated with the original.Oddly, it seems the film today may be better known for the soundtrack than the movie itself. The soundtrack (which is very edgy, very 90s) stands up twenty years on. The film has gained a bit as far as nostalgia value goes, but few would call it their favorite Kurt Russell or John Carpenter film.

Totally bitchin' 80s camp. If you like that sort of thing you should like this. This is not "serious" film. It has decent production values and the special effects are just corny enough to be just right. This is not meant as a deep commentary on anything (or at least I hope not, since that would mean I totally missed it). This is just fun movie-making, and also, I feel the need to mention, a solid step up in production values from "Big Trouble in Little China", which I also watched recently.Really, just kick back and watch Snake battle his way into and out of L.A., and ignore all of the people who just don't get campy movies.

At times 'Escape From L.A.' feels more like a parody of 'Escape From New York' than a sequel, and it's clear that Carpenter was going for more of a satire vibe here; A satire of (then) current political culture. A satire of big budget Hollywood action movies. A satire of Southern California culture. The problem is that it overwhelms the entire movie, and everything else feels like an afterthought to his quest to zing his targets.There are still a few worthwhile moments tucked in amongst all of the flotsam and jetsam, and Kurt Russell doesn't miss a beat after a fifteen year absence from the role of Snake Plissken, but it's just not enough to save this well-intended misfire.