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Summary: John Carpenter's absolute BEST!
Review: Here it is! John Carpenter's masterpiece! My favourite film when I was a kid, and it's still up there in the top five of all time! A gritty and cynical look at society, carried out to perfection by the genius that is John Carpenter, with a dark, threatening atmosphere, the film manages to land in a mood of that I've never experienced so strongly from another film. It also features a terrific performance from Kurt Russell, and great work from Lee Van Cleef, Isaac Hayes, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence and Harry Dean Stanton, plus a brilliant score by Carpenter and Alan Howarth. Quite simply, the greatest american action film ever!
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Summary: One of John Carpenter's best films.
Review: I have to go back every now and then to watch this film through to remind myself why I like John Carpenter's work so much, after seeing the last few sad movies he made (although I have not seen Vampires yet). Escape from New York hooked me as a kid, when I saw it in a Manhattan theater (that was a kick). As mentioned by the other reviews, he did an amazing job creating a believable atmosphere with a cool storyline on a small budget. In my opinion everything works in this movie: the pacing, the music, the sets, the cast (although Donald Pleasance as President of the US?). The music is especially good - very low key and simplistic, as usual used very well. A highlight - Debussy's La Cathedrale Engloutie (the engulfed cathedral) on synth as Snake pilots into the city - Perfect!
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Summary: excellent action sci i film
Review: unique,dark fil
Rating:
Summary: Classic futuristic tale with Russell at his best!
Review: If you liked the Mad Max movies, you'll love this one.Not only does Kurt Russell become Snake, but there is an all-star cast also.One of my all time favorites and I'm going to purchase it now from Amazon because I've tried for 10 years or more to find it without any luck.Do yourself a favor and watch this movie.
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Summary: best kurt russell movie, great escapism
Review: One of the coolest of the post-apocalyptic genre of films, Kurt virtually creates the category of the "anti-hero." Top notch performances from a great cast (especially Isaac Hayes as the main bad guy.) If you need a good adrenaline rush, the last 10 minutes will do it! Best watched at around 2AM with all the lights off and the volume up loud (nobody does a better soundtrack than Carpenter.) Everybody please bug Amazon to get the director's cut, I've got to see it!
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Summary: A living hell which we might pay!
Review: Another one of John Carpenter's films that, acording to the fan's, recieved a CULT stadis. For Kurt Russel's first really action role, he did excpetionaly well. This is on my top ten of favorite films! Highly recomened by me, rent the director's cut if you can't find the origainl. That contains the beging and why Snake Plisken was aressted!
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Summary: This film is one of the best and should be seen by everyone.
Review: No other film can match this one's perfection. It's flawless. It is a realistic look at where the world seems to be heading right now. While the movie only had a small budget of 1 million dollars to work with, the acting and scenery is top-notch. The sets really convey a city which has been abandoned and left desolate only to be turned into a maximum security prison. The special effects aren't really all that flashy, but this is because of three reasons: 1) it was made in 1981 2) it had a small budget 3) it's a movie set in a prison. How are there supposed to be flasy explosions and such in a prison? All in all the movie does have a high degree of realism and leaves the viewer thinking of how easily this movie could happen in real life. END
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Summary: Snake Plissken; Add Him To Your List of Movie Heroes
Review: There's always something bizarre, in a very cool way, about watching a futuristic movie set in a year we've already passed. It's very eerie. Released in 1981, "Escape From New York" opens to explain that in 1988, Manhattan Island was transformed into a Maximum Security Prison, surrounded by a massive wall from every angle; guarded by police, with landmines at every exit route. The film is set in 1997, when terrorists bring down Air Force One, president and all, right into the heart of the forbidden island. Luckily, the president has survived thanks to his escape pod, and a rescue team is immediately dispatched in an effort to retrieve him and his special cargo. The president carries with him a cassette tape (very futuristic, eh?) of recorded information that could bring peace to the currently warring nations, but the time left with which to use it in is short. The rescue team finds the escape pod empty, and is soon approached by a loony prisoner with a grim message. The president has been taken captive by the A-Number One inmate of Manhattan Island, The Duke of New York. This is a job for... SNAKE PLISSKEN!Yes, Snake Plissken: war hero; the youngest man ever to be decorated by the president; and recently, bank robber. Before being condemned to join the other inmates of Manhattan Island, Snake is made an offer. Go in, come back with the president and the tape before the clock runs out, and get a full pardon. But to sweeten the deal, another card is played. Snake is injected with two tiny capsules into his bloodstream. If he doesn't make it back in time to have the capsules neutralized, they will explode and rupture his arteries, killing him immediately. The only thing Snake really cares about anymore is himself, so now he has no choice. He must fly a glider into the heart of the city, locate the president and his tape, and together, they must escape from New York! John Carpenter creates another masterpiece with "Escape From New York." The city is turned into a truly intimidating, downright frightening environment, with every kind of crazy one could think of. Kurt Russel as Snake Plissken, creates one more of those wonderful iconic anti-heroes the likes of Bruce Campbell's Ash and Rowdy Roddy Piper's Nada; self-serving, gruff, and full of great one-liners, but always doing the right thing when it comes down to it. The always fun Ernest Borgnine is great as Cabbie, Harry Dean Stanton is perfect as Brain, and Donald Pleasance and Isaac Hayes are also well cast, as was the entire film. Carpenter's usually haunting music runs throughout, and the adventure and action is non-stop. A must have for all fans of the sci-fi anti-hero genre and apocalyptic future films. Sorry I can't comment on the Special Edition DVD, but I currently only have the bare bones edition. It sounds great though, and I definitely want to get it. Mine does include the theatrical trailer though, and it's very cool. Love those creepy theatrical trailers for sci-fi films of the late 70s and early 80s. "Escape From New York" was followed by a sequel in 1996, "Escape From L.A." Some (maybe most) may find the sequel overly campy, with too many special effects and too much comedy. I have to confess that I slightly prefer L.A., probably for those very reasons. I'm not huge on camp, but it seemed to work well with the material. The plot was fairly similar though, and both movies have GREAT twist endings.
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Summary: "You mean I can't count on you?...Good!"
Review: What can I say. Strangely enough, despite the fact that I am a child of the 80s (I was 12 when this movie first came out), I never saw Escape from New York until 6 weeks ago. Then I was hooked. Most people know the story. In the "future," (1988, haha) the US crime rate rises 400%. To combat this crime wave, drastic measures are taken. The United States becomes a fascist-like police state, and in 1992 New York City becomes the country's one maximum-security prison to house the worst society has to offer. Sealed off from the outside world by a 50-foot containment wall on all sides, Manhattan Island becomes a modern (or postmodern) Botany Bay. All bridges, tunnels and waterways surrounding the island are mined, and the US Police Force constantly patrols by helicopter, to ensure that no prisoners escape. Criminals unlucky enough to receive a maximum-security sentence are given a choice: be executed or be airdropped into the New York for life to fend for themselves. As the chilling opening narration observes, "There are no guards, only prisoners and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple. Once you go in, you don't come out." Into this black pit of despair comes one S.V. "Snake" Plissken, played by Kurt Russell. A war hero (he won 2 purple hearts, one in Leningrad and one in Siberia - remember, the Soviet Union still existed when this film was made), Snake for unspecified reasons has turned to a life of crime. And at the film's beginning, the Law has finally caught up with Snake, and he is being transported to New York to serve a life sentence for bank robbery when Fate steps in. On the same evening that Snake is brought to Manhattan Island to begin serving his sentence, the President of the United States (played by Donald Pleasance) is on his way to a peace summit when his plane (Airforce One) is hijacked by a terrorist posing as a pilot, and is crashed into the prison. (In today's post-9/11 environment, the hijacking scene, at least to me, is particularly chilling and I have a hard time watching it). Miraculously, the President exits the plane via his special "escape pod" and he survives the plane crash...only to be taken captive by the "Duke of New York," played with beautiful understated menace by Isaac Hayes. Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (played by Lee Van Cleef), has an idea: send Snake Plissken, trained combat veteran and specialist at "getting in quiet," into the prison to find the President and rescue him. If he succeeds, Snake will be pardoned for every crime he's ever committed in the United States. And just to make sure that Snake fulfills his end of the bargain, Hauk has the prison's chief doctor implant 2 explosives in Snake's neck. If Snake does not return with the President in 22 hours, the explosives will go off, and, as Hauk wryly notes, "No more Snake Plissken." So the die is cast. Snake goes in...but will he find the President alive? Even if he finds the President alive, will he get out in time to have the charges in his neck neutralized? Watch it and see. This film is entertaining on many levels. It's an excellently crafted story, complete with social commentary and irony. It's a dystopic vision of what can happen when we trade too much of our liberty in exchange for what we think is security - definitely another resonant theme in our post-9/11 reality. We clamp down on individual rights/freedoms, supposedly in the name of protecting the collective - and leave society's undesirables to prey on each other in an asphalt jungle hell. But then what are we? According to this film, we're only slightly less inhuman than the criminals. And the DVD contains various extras and bonuses which are sure to round out one's Escape from New York knowledge. This includes the documentary film "Return to Escape from New York," which details the making of the film. There are also commentary tracks by John Carpenter and Kurt Russell, as well as by producer Debra Hill. Another real treat is the deleted bank robbery scene (the original first 10 minutes of the movie). This scene was cut from the final film because, in Carpenter's words on the commentary track, premiere audiences thought it diminished Snake's character by "humanizing" him too much. I actually found that humanization to be a good thing, and thought that the Bank Robbery sequence helped to set context for the story. Along the lines of the deleted bank robbery sequence, another potential flaw of this movie, at least in my opinion, is that we never really know much about the characters or why they are the way they are. In other words, there's not much in the way of character development or backstory. For example, we know that Snake is sullen, embittered and in general concerned for nothing but his own self-preservation (though occasionally flashes of humanity do show and when it comes down to it, he does the right thing). But why? I've read that Mike McQuay's novelization of the movie sketches out some history for Snake's character (and for the characters of Hauk, Brain, Maggie, Cabbie and the President as well). It would have been nice to see some of that in the film, with subplots, flashbacks, etc. It would've made the story richer. But, regardless, what is there is great stuff. The cynicism and one-liners will bring a wry smile to your face, especially when they come from good old snarling Snake. Check it out.
Rating:
Summary: amazing from start to end
Review: poweful and just as funny as its follow up (aka Escape from LA)
Snake Plisskin is: daring, moving, funny. serioues, powerful etc in this slight sci fi action movie
great visuals
great acting
great scenery
great direction
great plot
seen this 8 times already on my dvd player
count on it being seen more
esepecially over the next 90 years
this movie shocks and rocks
the soundtrack theme at the beginning by John Carpenter is quite haunting and rocking at the same time
and it's slight readdition changes in the Escape from LA movie are even more techno like, scary, haunting, and rocking too
awesome job everyone who made, starred and helped with this movie
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