Sorry, but this film is awful
I gave it another chance after watching the great EFNY again, and it just as bad as I remember it.
The CGI somehow looks worse than it does in Newyork! work that one out.
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MovieChat Forums > Escape from L.A. (1996) Discussion > Sorry, but this film is awful
Yeah, I'm with IvoryFlintheart-- I like this one too. Not quite as much as EFNY (which is pure magic), but I think it's an excellent movie, and much more satirical than EFNY.
The CGI somehow looks worse than it does in Newyork! work that one out.
There's no CGI in EFNY, just matte paintings and model shots. The CGI in EFLA looks like CGI, that's all.
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The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
yeah, I can say its disappointing...in a way. But still, terrible CGI or not, this is still a very fun movie that I enjoy.
EFNY is better, of course, in my opinion.
Agreed. New York is a classic but LA is still a lot of fun.
As to the rubbish CGI, I think I'm right in saying that Carpenter, not being used to big budgets, blew most of the money straight away on the earthquake sequence at the start then made the rest of the film in his usual cut- price way!
EFLA is so underrated, fun film just like the 1st
"Bon Apetite...Bitch!" - Freddy Krueger
I remember Carpenter saying somewhere, that he actually had less budget for LA than even the Village of the Damned remake. Although the CGI isn't exactly top-notch in LA, it's still fun and serves its purpose. You just have to take it as fun and enjoyable, and probably pretty good for the money lol! :-)
Time enough for the earth in the grave!share
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Not quite as much as EFNY (which is pure magic).
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" pure magic " . lol .
Although , I have to agree the score in NY was so much better .
And yes , it is more sathirical . MAYBE and I say maybe it's so underrated because it seems like the movie doesn't take itself that seriously .
And for this one reason , it is so much better than the first ..
++ forget alien vs predator , turok is like rambo vs jurassic park ++
I'm curious . Do you still type like this ? With spaces before your punctuation marks ? It's quite original, I'll give you that . . .
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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
I agree the CGI is bad...but that is what it was like back then (on a low budget).
But, there is much more in EFLA than CGI.
This is a great film.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is God.
Carpenter and Russell aren't fans of sequels......so their decision was to essentially make a re-make. That's clearly the intention.
People put the first movie on a pedestal - that's always the struggle when dealing with a sequel.
I'm not gonna say which one is better......but they both feel fairly similar to me. Both feel like they come out a comic book. 'Escape From LA' has the satire on Hollywood, which gives it a little something new. But both fun adventures with Snake Plissken.
The CGI was so cheap I thought this film was made in the late 1980s...
very surprised that it was actually 1996.
Actually this entire movie was so corny and oddball, the sets looked cheap, it seems more like a 1980s film...
still it was so bad it was good. fun to watch. 5/10
It's supposed to be a little "corny and oddball." As if 'Escape from New York' wasn't?
Why are you surprised it was 1996? CGI was still in its infancy.
I never saw Escape from New York...I just saw this on tv.
and I was surprised cause after all I remember seeing oh I dunno Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Total recall and Casper in the early 90s as well.
now if this movie had an Extremely low budget I can understand. But it apparently had a decent one (google says 50 million).
I did like John Carpenters movie "The Thing" (which looked better than this film...) though so I will also check out Escape from New York in the future and hope its better.
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I agree with the OP.
EFLA was much better the first time I saw it when it was called EFNY.
I know now that they were basically doing a more commercial remake and that's pretty much why I don't like it. It's like a crappy version of EFNY. When I went to see it in 1996 I didn't realize that it was supposed to be a quasi-remake. That was before the internet so going in I honestly didn't know much about the film. But as I sat there watching, with all the same scenes and beats etc I just thought it was lame that they rehashed so much of the story and plot from EFNY.
Also it's clear the Carpenter just lost it as far as directing movies goes sometime in the early 90s. There was Invisible Man, Village of the Damned, EFLA, Vampires, Ghosts of Mars.
Those are all bad to terrible movies. EFLA is the only one I would ever even want to see again just because as bad as it is it does have a few good scenes and Kurt Russel.
But really, somewhere along the line Carpenter lost his touch.
I agree those that say Escape from L.A. isn't up to par with N.Y., despite its devilish sense of humour.
As for the rest of Carpenter's nineties output, I didn't make it through Village of the Damned, and I can't claim to be in possession of any logical reasons why I enjoy the Invisible Man. In the Mouth of Madness has some very striking images and a clever premise, capped by a marvelously committed performance from Sam Neill.
Ghosts of Mars is highly enjoyable as well, and Vampires is even better -- the perfect antidote to the stale Wonder bread notion of blood suckers as romantic and misunderstood.
In fact, Vampires is more fun than just about any movie I can think of. It absolutely flies by, and James Woods sells the shinola out of every scene he's in. I recommend giving it another try, surrounded by friends, while swilling down a bit of beer.
They're not classics like Halloween and The Thing (or The Fog and Prince of Darkness for that matter), but from where I'm sitting, Carpenter's still acting like Carpenter -- it's the world around him that's changed. I wasn't too keen on his "Masters of Horror" contribution though.
"In fact, Vampires is more fun than just about any movie I can think of. It absolutely flies by, and James Woods sells the shinola out of every scene he's in. I recommend giving it another try, surrounded by friends, while swilling down a bit of beer."
If you say so. I thought it was absolutely terrible (especailly Woods and Baldwin) and I've only seen bits and pieces of it since I first saw it when it came out, but the parts I have seen were every bit as bad as I remember. The only way I could possibly see enjoying Vampires is in a MST3000 kind of way.
Well, I didn't say good beer.
shareI can't think of a movie I rated poorly based on the effects work (heck, some of my favourite films have really cheap effects) but this one just looked DREADFUL. If there was a movie I'd show to people to say "that's why CGI dates faster than model work", this would be at the top of the list (with the Star Wars Special Editions, of course).
The problem to me is, it's a VERY "1980's" action movie... even the 'message' feels like a 70's-80's one. That's fine, I can enjoy it in a totally cheesy way, with Snake hitting with casual waves of automatic fire, while the bad guys miss at point blank range (and again, most of my favourite movies are from the 70's and 80's!) but the fact that it looks so BAD at times really pulled me out of the fun.
Either A) don't attempt stuff you can't afford to do right (the surfing scene... just, wow) or B) if you're making an 80's movie, go the whole way... use bluescreen and miniature sets and physical effects all the way.
It wouldn't matter then if your movie is a cheap, cheesy exploitation flick if it felt it was trying to hark back to that era... but making it as a 'modern' film when the plot is predictable, cliche unsubtle nonsense and the effects look terrible just makes your movie FEEL like it belongs in the bargain bin!
Incidentally, I watched Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior) the night before, an old film with a tiny budget and no CGI... and it seriously looked a hundred times better than Escape From LA IMO!