Dan Abel’s review published on Letterboxd:
They killed John Carpenter's original Escape from New York theme with 90's wretchedness. That's just the first 60 seconds of this abomination. Now we're in the distant future of 2013. The political undertones that permeate this film are apparent. I didn't remember this movie being so politically hacky but I do remember it being a bad sequel that attempted to be carbon copy of the original. Upon watching it again today I am left to wonder if it's meant to be a parody of the original. That would make a lot more sense than John Carpenter seeing this as a serious piece of work. There's a part where Snake guides his submarine away from the jaws of a shark right in front of a submerged Universal Studios, for fucks sake.
The 1982 models used in EfNY looked much better than the CGI used in 1996 EfLA. I've spoken about this in previous reviews, but the mid 1990's were that weird pubescent phase for CGI. Some of it was passable and some of it was pure comedy. The CGI in this film fits the latter. The awful 90's "rock" soundtrack was cringe worthy too. Gross. This is an abomination. This movie stinks, even if the excellent original didn't exist for comparison it would still stink. The surfing scene was the maggot sprinkles on the shit cake.
It wouldn't be fair if I don't mention the few Pros:
-A few decent action scenes.
-The great Steve Buscemi.
-Huang, Charlie's landlord from It's Always Sunny.
-The Hotel Cecil in the background of two shots.
This movie should be put in a vault somewhere and all digital copies EMP'd. Awful. If you must watch this film I recommend watching this pile of awful BEFORE the original. Then you can compare pure shit to excellence and not be left with a bad aftertaste.