In the year 2013, the United States of America has now become a totalitarian theocracy overseen by the President for Life (Cliff Robertson). Anyone who doesn't adhere to the strict moral code of the administration is deported to the island of Los Angeles which after breaking off from the United States in 1997 from a catastrophic flood and earthquake is deemed to be no longer part of the United States and run by various gangs. When the President's daughter, Utopia (A. J. Langer), steals a black box for an experimental new weapon and flees to Los Angeles to Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface), the leader of Shining Path a hostile faction made of disenfranchise third world nations who oppose America's leadership. With their grip on power threatened, the President gets recent deportee S. D. Bob "Snake" Plissken (Kurt Russell) and offers him full immunity in exchange for retrieving the black box and assassinating Utopia. Plissken initially refuses only to be told he's been infected with the Putoxin Virus that and unless he's given the antidote in 10 hours will suffer complete neurological shut down. Now racing against the clock, Plissken travels to the lawless land of Los Angeles to find the box and Utopia among its wild denizens.
Escape from L. A. is a 1996 sci-fi action film directed by John Carpenter and co-written by Carpenter alongside producer Debra Hill and star Kurt Russell. While Escape from New York had been a massive success in its day and influenced a number of sci-fi and action films, Carpenter had never seriously considered a sequel as he tended to take a dim view of follow-ups after the various sequels made to his own Halloween failed to live up to the critical and commercial success of the original. At the request of longtime friend and frequent collaborator Kurt Russell, the two got together on working on a sequel as Russell had long wanted to play the character again (having a fondness for it as it helped shed his lighthearted Disney image) and taking from his experience living in L. A. and contemporary events like the Northridge Earthquake and 1992 civil unrest, this would lay the foundation for what would become Escape from L. A.. Upon release critical reception was mixed with some like Roger Ebert appreciated the film's bend towards satire while others considered it a rehash of its predecessor. If you go in expecting a sequel like Terminator 2 that expands the concept you're going to be disappointed, but if you go in expecting something more akin to Evil Dead 2 or Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 that's probably the best way to view this movie.
While Escape from New York gritty environments and action beats are undeniably influential and important milestones in genre film history, Escape from New York is also one of those movies that people take more seriously than it actually is. While Carpenter did write the film as a straight action film he also had Nick Castle re-write his script to include more humor such as Ernest Borgnine's character of Cabbie, the exaggerations of 1970s New York, and of course the drag revue set to the darkly comic song "Everyone's Coming to New York". In a way, Escape from L. A. is sort of the opposite of Escape from New York where Escape from New York was a serious action film that had secondary layer of humor/satire, Escape from L. A. has the humor/satire on top of the surface and makes it well known that it's supposed to be a sillier exercise in comparison to the first film.
In terms of being a follow-up to Escape from New York, the film plays itself extremely close to the original (often using similar plotpoints/devices) while also doing a reasonably nice job of making L. A. feel different from this world's version of New York. Keeping itself more in line with the sillier tone, L. A. is very much an exaggeration of contemporary L. A. where it's painted as a land of counter cultural freedom from the oppressive theocratic mainland while also possessing the danger and unpredictability of a wild west town (a move that Carpenter admits to being intentional). Needless to say Russell's Plissken is no less good here than in Escape from New York still possessing that Clint Eastwood like anti-hero appeal and anti-establishment slant of the original. Much like how the President in the prior film took heavy influence from Nixon, the President this time around takes shots at Reagan and Bush making the world a parody of the "moral majority" movement. The movie also features some additional satire like Steve Buscemi's caricature of a sleazy agent, Bruce Campbell's deranged plastic surgeon known as the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills, and Peter Fonda's laid back "surfer dude" who's something of an analogue to Cabbie for the original, but there is one major misstep and it's in having a memorable antagonist from L. A.. Georges Corraface plays Cuervo Jones and after his underwhelming debut in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery he's still very much a stiff and lacks the charisma and menace Isaac Hayes brought as the Duke of New York and while Corraface is handsome and has a Che Guevara like look to him, you just don't buy him as this leader who holds sway over L. A..
Lastly, we come to a major sticking point for many people: the effects work. While upon revisit the effects in Escape from New York definitely show their age, they still look impressive even today and that's in no small part to the absolute dream team of production designer Joe Alves, effects artists Dennis and Robert Skotak, and even DP work by James Cameron who'd take similar visual energy to Terminator and Aliens. With Escape from L. A., the movie utilizes a lot of early 90s CGI for scenes that are way too ambitious for what it can pull off and as a result the movie doesn't look nearly as good as Escape from New York. Some of the matte work is still impressive and there's some good production design (such as a Disneyland knock-off used for the climax) but the effects work is definitely a point against the movie.
Escape from L. A. is the kind of movie that if you can forgive its shortcomings there's actually some pretty solid work on display. While it definitely plays up the satire and humor more in comparison to its grittier predecessor, it's still reasonably well acted (Corraface notwithstanding), there's some solid action beats, and an interesting funhouse mirror take on L. A.. The movie does lack a strong villain on par with the Duke and some of the effects work wasn't even considered good at the time it was made, but provided you're willing to accept an exaggeration on the first film in line with Evil Dead 2 or Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 it delivers.
