FILM REVIEW OF ''ESCAPE FROM L.A." (1996)

If Snake Plissken had an attitude problem in "Escape from New York," wait until you behold the havoc he wrecks in the long-awaited, slam-bang sequel "Escape from Los Angeles,"(***1/2 OUT OF ****)  a memorable apocalyptic science fiction satire that more than compensates for many of the shortcomings in the original.

In August 2000, an earthquake separates Los Angeles from the California mainland. An ultra-conservative Jerry Falwell-type politician (Cliff Robertson of "PT-109"), who predicted the earthquake, has managed to exploit his good fortune to win the presidency in the next election. The term of his presidency, however, is lifetime. He rewrites the laws so that he can hang on to the post for life then relocates the nation's capital to Lynchburg, Virginia. A new morally white-washed America has emerged by the year 2013. Cursing, smoking, pre-marital as well as extra-marital sex, and eating red meat now constitutes crimes. The government deports anybody who doesn't conform to this new order and sends them to the gang-infested cesspool of Los Angeles. The U.S. Police Force maintains a chain of forts along the coastline to repel the efforts of a South American revolutionary, Cuervo Jones (George Corraface of "Christopher Columbus"), who plans to spearhead a Third World invasion to reclaim America. 

Things take a turn for the worse when the President's naïve daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer) steals a black box. The black box contains the remote control to activate a necklace of lethal satellites designated 'the Sword of Damocles.' These satellites encircle Earth, and they can fire a magnetic pulse beam with pinpoint accuracy that can disable any kind of electric engine. Utopia hijacks Air Force 3 and the jetliner crashes in L.A. She allies herself with Cuervo Jones who threatens to use the weapon against America. The U.S. Police Force dispatches a rescue team, but they all die. Enter 'war hero' Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell of "Tombstone"), unshaven, sporting a black patch over his left eye, his typically surly attitude toward authority in general, in handcuffs with a police escort. The only thing Snake seems to be interested in is where he can get his next cigarette. The police infect Snake with a deadly virus that gives him less than ten hours to retrieve the black box.  Snake remembers being infected by a scratch from a person who walks past him but he puts down this brief episode as nothing until he realizes the enormityof what has happened.  Reluctantly, Snake agrees to take the mission and rides a nuclear mini-sub into Los Angeles.

Snake shares the sentiments of Marlon Brando's motorcycle maverick from "The Wild One." When asked what he rebels against, Brando's black-leather clad biker replies: "What have you got?" Whatever it is, Snake is against it. Snake thumbs his nose at the rules as well as the rule makers. He is the ultimate anti-hero, sent to save a civilization that he abhors. Former Disney star Kurt Russell reprises the tough guy tongue-in-cheek role he created in "Escape from New York." No, you don't have to have seen the original to appreciate "Escape from Los Angeles." His fastidious performance boasts equal amounts of put-on and posturing. Russell delivers his dialogue in a low, rasping monotone that parodies Clint Eastwood's 'Man with No Name" bounty hunter character. Snake resembles a fashionably rode-hard but put-up-wet Marvel Comic super hero clad in skin-tight, black garb, with matching automatic pistols. Nevertheless, Snake hardly qualifies as a super hero. The filmmakers have a great time poking fun at their one-eyed protagonist. Instead of calling him 'blue eyes,' they refer to him as 'blue eye.' Everybody who comes into contact with Snake for the first time expresses surprise that Snake isn't taller. Snake acts rather gullible on occasions when he has to depend on characters who double-cross him.

While the first "Escape" represented a triumph of style over substance, the "Escape" sequel triumphs both in style and substance. "Escape from New York" attained classic cult status as a darkly comic, industrial-strength escapade where Snake rescued a U.S. President from a grim maximum security prison on Manhattan Island. The story generated at least a modicum of tension because Snake had to contend with the severe time restriction. He had been injected with a poison that would kill him if he failed to accomplish his mission by its deadline. In the first "Escape," Snake sought to retrieve a cassette tape to bring about world peace. Strictly a follow-the-numbers formula melodrama, "Escape" benefited from its gritty looks, Carpenter's fantastic orchestral score, and the eerie atmosphere between the time that Snake landed his glider on New York City's World Trade Center and the violent shoot'em up finale on a bridge. The first "Escape" suffered because the scene between the inventive opening and concluding set pieces were synthetic and forgettable. The beauty of "Escape from Los Angeles" lies in the producer's refusal to stray from its formulaic origins. Moreover, the filmmakers have beefed up the budget, broadened the scope, and pumped up the story. Once again Snake battles the clock in his strenuous efforts to recover a device that can trigger world-wide destruction. There is a far greater sense of urgency in this "Escape" as we see Snake cutting corners and blowing away the opposition at every turn to save time. The sequence where he first tires to kill Cuervo Jones has a frenetic Indiana Jones quality.  Snake commandeers motorcycles and leaps from one vehicle to the next, swapping lead with a horde of unsavory villains.  Perhaps the strangest scene involves the deranged cosmetic surgeon (Bruce Campbell of "Evil Dead") who carves his victims up to get their useful body parts.

Director John Carpenter never lets the story slow down so we can catch our breath. Just when you think that you have it all figured out, he pulls a fast one with a clever surprise or two that enlivens this "Escape." "Escape from Los Angeles" pushes the envelope further in all directions. Carpenter penned the script with producer Debra Hill and Kurt Russell. Snake's mission is no picnic. The filmmakers plunge Snake headlong into one rigorous, hair-raising adventure after another. Snake spends the nine and a half hours of the literal storyline jumping through one flaming hoop after another in his quest for the black box. Of course, Carpenter and company have wisely compressed the time and super-charged the action so that the movie hurdles along at a breakneck pace.  Several familiar faces pad out the cast. Stacy Keach of "Mike Hammer" fame plays the same role Lee Van Cleef had in the original. Keach ranks as the top cop who coordinates between Snake and Cliff Robertson's scene-chewing president. "Rain Man" co-star Valerie Golino and "Pulp Fiction's" Steve Buscemi help Snake navigate through the rubble of Los Angeles. The only thing "Escape from L. A." doesn't do better is repeat the same orchestral score. John Carpenter received credit for the music, but Shirley Walker of "Batman") puts a spin on the theme that doesn't compare favorably to the original. If you thought the first "Escape" remotely entertaining, "Escape from L.A." should blow your mind. Watch out for all that R-rated violence and profanity.

FILM REVIEW OF ''STEAMBOAT BILL, JR" (1928-SILENT)

This imaginative comedy lacks the prestige of Buster Keaton's classic American Civil War comedy "The General." Nevertheless,"Steamboat Bill, Jr." (***1/2 out of ****)surpasses "College." Clocking in at a concise 69 minutes, this amusing father and son reconciliation drama includes a romance along the lines of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet." Furthermore, the narrative chronicles the emergence of our diminutive protagonist as a man who can master his fate after he appeared destined for disaster. In other words, Buster casts himself as an underdog again as he did in "College." The problem with this existential comedy is our hero's transition from a clumsy nincompoop to an expert acrobat who can perform high dives off the top of a steamboat and rig it up in such a way so he can operate it single-handedly lacks credibility. The only shred of evidence that our eponymous hero has what it takes occurs when he surprises the sheriff, slugs him in the stomach, and watches as the fellow falls like an avalanche. More amazing than any of Buster's clever sight gags as he learns his way around the paddle wheeler is the spectacular special effects. Remember, the special effects personnel pulled off these stunts long before computer-generated special effects were available.

The Carl Harbaugh story concerns a pugnacious Mississippi River paddle wheeler captain who meets his son, Willie (Buster Keaton of "The Three Ages"), for the first time since he last saw him as an infant in the crib. Essentially, Bill does not know what Willie looks like. Meantime, Willie arrives at River Junction from Boston dressed like a fashionable college graduate, wearing a beret, sporting a pencil thin mustache, a spotted bow-tie, and carrying a ukulele under his arm. He has sent his father a telegram informing him that he will be able to recognize him by the white carnation that he will be wearing in his coat lapel. Unfortunately, Willie seems to have forgotten that it is Mother's Day and everybody is wearing a white carnation. Bill (Ernest Torrence of "Captain Salvation") and his First Mate, Tom Carter (Tom Lewis of "Adam and Eva"), head off to the railway station fully expecting to greet a big strapping lad twice the size of William Canfield, Sr. Nobody at the train station fits the description of the elder Canfield's son. As the Southern Railway locomotive with the number 45 on it pulls out, it turns out that Willie Canfield has been out of sight on the other side of the tracks. He makes an idiot out of himself as he approaches all the men in the station and flashes his carnation at them. Eventually, Willie loses the carnation, but he does not realize it and keeps poking his empty lapel into the faces of strangers. Finally, Bill recognizes Willie by the tag on his luggage while Willie is dancing and playing his ukulele for a baby in a stroller. Clearly, the 1920s were a different age altogether when babies could be left unattended in carriages at a public place without fear of being abducted.

Once he has picked his son up at the depot, Bill ushers Willie into a barber chair and orders the barber to shave off the "barnacle" of a mustache on his lip. Later, Bill drags Willie to a haberdashery to replace the beret with a hat that a man would wear. No sooner have they left the store than a gust of wind whips the white hat off his head and blows it into the river. Willie pulls the beret out of his back pocket and slips it back onto his head. Predictably, Bill is surprised to see the beret reappear, but he does nothing. Earlier, while Willie enconsed in the barber chair, Willie noticed that a cute little thing sitting opposite him is none other than Kitty King (Marion Byron of "Song of the West"), who attended the same college in Boston. These two try to get together, but their fathers refuse to countenance their relationship. John James King (Tom McGuire of "The Reckless Age") tells Kitty that he will pick the right man for her and the candidate will not be "the son of a river tramp." Similarly, Bill tells Willie that he will choose an appropriate mate for him and will not have a King for a daughter-in-law. Basically, Steamboat Bill and King are competitors in the paddle wheeler business on the Missisippi River. Recently, King brought in his brand new paddle wheeler and convinces the Public Safety Commissioner condemn the paddle wheeler--the Stonewall Jackson--that Bill owns. Bill goes after King, and King has him thrown in jail. The same day that the sheriff puts Bill in jail is the very day that Bill had arranged transport for Willie back to Boston. Willie sees the authorities take his father to calaboose and contrives a scheme to break him out. He conceals several tools inside a giant loaf of bread and convinces the sheriff to let him give it to his father. Initially, Bill wants nothing to do with Willie until his son shows him what the loaf contains. Bill breaks out, but Willie is caught. The sheriff cracks an unsuspecting Willie over the head with his six-gun and sends Canfield Junior off to the receiving hospital.

The major set-piece of "Steamboat Bill, Jr." is a high wind storm that tears up all the buildings in River Junction, blows the top off the hospital, and sends the jail into the river. The physical sight gags that Keaton performs are some of his best and most imitated. In one scene, the entire facade of a building falls on Willie, but he is standing where the window is so he is not hurt! Each gag is beautifully orchestrated by director Chas. F. Reisner who specialized in comedies, including the lesser Marx Brothers picture "The Big Store" and the Abbott & Costello comedy "Lost in a Harem." Even the smallest of gags, such as peanut hulls--which Bill refers to as "cocoanut shells"--that cut their bare feet up when they cross a floor are hilarious. The spectacle of Keaton clutching an uprooted tree that is hurled into the river is incredible as are the flying buildings that Buster runs into and out of. Of course, Willie and Kitty hook up in the end. Keaton performs all of his stunts and they are pretty amazing. "Steamboat Bill, Jr." ranks as a memorable Buster Keaton epic with several well-staged sight gags.

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