Three words why you should see Escape From L.A. - SNAKE IS BACK! Yep, the moaning bad a** is back and is in the middle of a world where it is 2013 where the world has become a place where you can not do anything without perfect intentions. This means no freedom of religion, no smoking, no swearing, no red meat and no marriages without the consent of the government. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russel) did some gunfighting for money and became an outlaw that the government wants to deport to the prison city of Los Angeles. Just like in Escape From New York Snake is injected with a virus and has to complete a mission before he is cured by medical personnel. The President of the United States of America thinks by doing this Snake will be co-operative (Ha Ha) and sends him to L.A. to get a black box that controls the worlds power that can be used to shut down the world. The president's daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer) stole this and gave it to the most ruthless killer in the world hoping her father will release all the prisoners in L.A. Snake has to go through Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), kill the president's daughter, get the black box back and do it before his time is up. Escape From L.A. is an extremely enjoyable film and one that proves you can out-do the original. It is of course not going to compete with the success of T2: Judgment Day but it is in the same league. If it was not a futuristic mirror of the original it would have gotten 5 stars for plot on it's own. VISUAL PRESENTATION: A pretty average visual presentation and strait up we get a few white specks during the main titles. 20 seconds in is the big white speck, but what can you do? For the rest of the film we get almost every scene clear and colours just as good. At 0:06:00 where all is night-time it is extremely clear and shows this is another good Paramount presentation. Escape from L.A is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen with 16:9 enhancement. Also a plus for this transfer is that there is no grain or aliasing what-so-ever. Escape from L.A. is RSDL fortunately, the layer change comes in at 0:52:23 and is in a bad place but not the worst. THere were no other places where they could have put it. 27 Chapter Stops: 1.Opening Credits 2.Los Angeles Island 3."Call me Snake" 4.The black box 5.The Plutoxin Seven Virus 6."Bye-Bye Snake" 7.Shark 3 Submarine 8.Beach-head at Cahuenga Pass 9.The new hollywood 10."Watch the parade" 11.Bankok rules 12.Map to the stars Eddie 13.Surgeon Genreal of Beverly Hills 14.Black Jihad Gunrunner 15.Shot with the fun gun 16.Sword of Damocles 17."Basketball. Two hoops. Full Court" 18.Snake on the loose 19.Tsunami 20.Hershe 21.Night wind 22.The Happy Kingdom 23.Death from above 24."Get the antidote, I'm coming in" 25.Worldwide broadcast 26."The name's Plissken" 27.End Credits Visual ratings: Sharpness: **** Shadow detail: **** Colour: **** Grain/Pixelization: *** Film to video artifacts: **** Film artifacts: ** Overall: **** AUDIO PRESENTATION: From the first second or two of music you know you are in for a brilliant sounding DVD and your right. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is great and does this fun film credit. Dialogue is clear and understandable at all times. John Carpenter once again composes aswell as directs and he does it well. The score here is simply a hard rock 'n roll version of Escape From New York and helps the film be the no-brainer action film. This score always surrounds Snake wit henjoyable music and really makes you concentrate on him and not the bad guys. Action and gun-fights are very classy and well done but the music makes them better. The Sub-woofer shook my floor with explosions well but with not enough oomph as such Actioner's like Eraser. Audio ratings: Dialogue: ****1/2 Audio Sync: **** Clicks/Pops/Dropouts: ***1/2 Surround channel use: *** Sub-woofer: **** Overall: ***1/2 Extras: Menu: Standard non-animated and boring with just the front cover picture for the background. Paramount should invest in good menus as they really do add something to the DVD. Theatrical Trailer: This is very funny and draws you in with the way it is cut. The music supports it well and the visual quality is better than some trailers I have seen but still not that good. Only DD 2.0, but I needed it in 5.1. R4 VS R1: Region 1 misses out on these: -16:9 Enhancement Final Thoughts: Escape From L.A. out does New York both in Action and coolness. The old snake was a bad man and we liked him because he was righteous, New York should arrive in Region 4 very soon. L.A. was better than NY in my mind and the new snake is an outlaw which nobody but the audience likes and thats the way he likes it. RATINGS OUT OF 5 STARS: VIDEO:**** AUDIO:***1/2 EXTRAS: 1/2 PLOT:*** (Mirror of the original) OVERALL:**** Review By: Adam James Dean (read my bio) |
ESCAPE FROM L.A "Call me Snake" |
Genre: Action Rating: M15+ Year Released at Cinema: 1996 Running Time: 1:36:33 RSDL: RSDL (0:52:23) Startup: Language selection then film Region: 2,4 Released by: Paramount DVD Case: Transparent Amaray (soft) Price: $34.95 Widescreen Ratio: 2.35:1 16:9 Enhancement/Anamorphic: Yes Extras: Theatrical Trailer Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Italian DD 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1 Subtitles: Greek, English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Croatian, Italian, Portuguese, Slovenian Starring: Kurt Russel (Tombstone, Escape from New York, Tango & Cash) Directed By: John Carpenter (Escape From New York, Big Trouble in little China) Music Composed By: Shirley Walker and John Carpenter |
Three words why you should see Escape From L.A. - SNAKE IS BACK! Yep, the moaning bad a** is back and is in the middle of a world where it is 2013 where the world has become a place where you can not do anything without perfect intentions. This means no freedom of religion, no smoking, no swearing, no red meat and no marriages without the consent of the government. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russel) did some gunfighting for money and became an outlaw that the government wants to deport to the prison city of Los Angeles. Just like in Escape From New York Snake is injected with a virus and has to complete a mission before he is cured by medical personnel. The President of the United States of America thinks by doing this Snake will be co-operative (Ha Ha) and sends him to L.A. to get a black box that controls the worlds power that can be used to shut down the world. The president's daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer) stole this and gave it to the most ruthless killer in the world hoping her father will release all the prisoners in L.A. Snake has to go through Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), kill the president's daughter, get the black box back and do it before his time is up. Escape From L.A. is an extremely enjoyable film and one that proves you can out-do the original. It is of course not going to compete with the success of T2: Judgment Day but it is in the same league. If it was not a futuristic mirror of the original it would have gotten 5 stars for plot on it's own. VISUAL PRESENTATION: A pretty average visual presentation and strait up we get a few white specks during the main titles. 20 seconds in is the big white speck, but what can you do? For the rest of the film we get almost every scene clear and colours just as good. At 0:06:00 where all is night-time it is extremely clear and shows this is another good Paramount presentation. Escape from L.A is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen with 16:9 enhancement. Also a plus for this transfer is that there is no grain or aliasing what-so-ever. Escape from L.A. is RSDL fortunately, the layer change comes in at 0:52:23 and is in a bad place but not the worst. THere were no other places where they could have put it. 27 Chapter Stops: 1.Opening Credits 2.Los Angeles Island 3."Call me Snake" 4.The black box 5.The Plutoxin Seven Virus 6."Bye-Bye Snake" 7.Shark 3 Submarine 8.Beach-head at Cahuenga Pass 9.The new hollywood 10."Watch the parade" 11.Bankok rules 12.Map to the stars Eddie 13.Surgeon Genreal of Beverly Hills 14.Black Jihad Gunrunner 15.Shot with the fun gun 16.Sword of Damocles 17."Basketball. Two hoops. Full Court" 18.Snake on the loose 19.Tsunami 20.Hershe 21.Night wind 22.The Happy Kingdom 23.Death from above 24."Get the antidote, I'm coming in" 25.Worldwide broadcast 26."The name's Plissken" 27.End Credits Visual ratings: Sharpness: **** Shadow detail: **** Colour: **** Grain/Pixelization: *** Film to video artifacts: **** Film artifacts: ** Overall: **** AUDIO PRESENTATION: From the first second or two of music you know you are in for a brilliant sounding DVD and your right. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is great and does this fun film credit. Dialogue is clear and understandable at all times. John Carpenter once again composes aswell as directs and he does it well. The score here is simply a hard rock 'n roll version of Escape From New York and helps the film be the no-brainer action film. This score always surrounds Snake wit henjoyable music and really makes you concentrate on him and not the bad guys. Action and gun-fights are very classy and well done but the music makes them better. The Sub-woofer shook my floor with explosions well but with not enough oomph as such Actioner's like Eraser. Audio ratings: Dialogue: ****1/2 Audio Sync: **** Clicks/Pops/Dropouts: ***1/2 Surround channel use: *** Sub-woofer: **** Overall: ***1/2 Extras: Menu: Standard non-animated and boring with just the front cover picture for the background. Paramount should invest in good menus as they really do add something to the DVD. Theatrical Trailer: This is very funny and draws you in with the way it is cut. The music supports it well and the visual quality is better than some trailers I have seen but still not that good. Only DD 2.0, but I needed it in 5.1. R4 VS R1: Region 1 misses out on these: -16:9 Enhancement Final Thoughts: Escape From L.A. out does New York both in Action and coolness. The old snake was a bad man and we liked him because he was righteous, New York should arrive in Region 4 very soon. L.A. was better than NY in my mind and the new snake is an outlaw which nobody but the audience likes and thats the way he likes it. RATINGS OUT OF 5 STARS: VIDEO:**** AUDIO:***1/2 EXTRAS: 1/2 PLOT:*** (Mirror of the original) OVERALL:**** Review By: Adam James Dean (read my bio) |
