Ian’s review published on Letterboxd:
54/100
”Sad story. You got a smoke?”
Just as I was saying that I have yet to be disappointed or uninterested in a film by Carpenter in my review for Escape from New York, this really got close to being the first film I disliked. On a very basic and general level I think the film is totally mediocre at best. However, given the huge talent involved and the previous film being an absolute classic, I just expected so much more here. I had saw some people mention how really similar this was to its predecessor, but man this was literally a complete carbon copy just taking place in LA.
This isn’t all bad because the first film is so good that this doesn’t hurt the actual story; but, each moment and plot point isn’t exciting cause I literally just saw it before. It doesn’t even offer anything new or exciting besides creating a new look of a city. Same types of characters, same exact progression of story, and overall it’s just Kurt Russell filling the film with as much charm as he can to not make it unbearable. There’s also so much wacky and genuinely crazy things in here that I kind of admired how far off the deep end Carpenter and crew took it. Unfortunately, the film is still just not all that exciting. Escape from L.A. is a bit of a mess, but I think it has just enough to save it from being a train wreck.
