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"Escape From New York"
Estimated Running Time: 99 dull minutes. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but somewhere along the line, somebody totally fucked up what could have quite possibly been the greatest action film ever. Seriously, stop and ponder this with me for a moment. You've got Kurt Russell, who's only a major bad-ass, playing a guy with a fucking eye patch. It's scientific fact that anyone who wears an eye patch is automatically the coolest guy you'll ever meet. And on top of that, the guy's name is Snake Plissken. Snake. Nobody names their kid "Snake". You have to be a hardcore ass-kicker to earn a name like that, or have a Ron Jeremy sized unit, at the very least. And then on top of that, you've got Isaac Hayes playing the role of the "Duke of New York". Isaac Hayes, people. The man who crafted the inspirational theme song for... oh... what was his name... SHAFT? You're damn right. Hayes has also dabbled in a small role as, let's see here, Chef from Southpark. This movie's loaded to the gills with bad-asses! So what went wrong? Well, read on, and I'll tell you. Escape From New York begins in typical John Carpenter movie fashion, which is to say, there's boring opening credits backed by Carpenter's trademark ear-splittingly awful synthesizer music. After suffering through what felt like several hours of Casio-powered chords that the theme from Tetris puts to shame, the movie itself gets underway. At this point, if you haven't already left the room, it's most likely too late to save yourself now. After the credits, we're treated to a bit of "what if" history, as such. According to the story, in 1988 New York pretty much turned into a shithole, more so than it was already, and Manhattan was converted into a massive prison island. Kind of like Australia, but with a much less annoying regional accent. Anyway, once criminals are convicted of whatever they were busted for, they're sent to live their lives out it Manhattan, where all kinds of Little Rascals-esque hijinks take place. Jump ahead to 1997, and we cut to the hero of this dismal little flick, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell). If you have the patience to not jam pencils into your eyes and ears during the tedious first few moments of the movie, you'll discover that Snake was a decorated war hero, and an all around well respected hombre, until he went batshit and robbed a bank. Obviously his grand bank heist plan didn't include a means of avoiding capture, so he ends up busted, and in store for a lifetime stretch inside of Manhattan. That is until, in a seemingly unrelated plot line, a group of feminine terrorist, estrogen-laced Bitch Demons hijack a plane, and set it on a collision course with one of the skyscrapers inside the New York prison area, to show that they're tired of the "imperialistic empire" that the United States has become. I'll (9/11) bet that (Osama) sounds familiar (Taliban), doesn't (Islam) it? But, wait! That's not just any plane! No my friends, it happens to be none other than Airforce One, complete with an onboard President of the United States! So while the terrorist mastermind, a highstrung bitch of a woman, rants and raves about how the white man always be oppresin' her people, the President uses some kind of fancy pants escape pod, and abandons his cabinet members to a horrible death by plane crash. Unfortunately for Mr. President though, his little escape pod lands right in the heart of the Manhattan Prison Island. In an effort to rescue el presidente, the United States Police Force, which is just post-apocalyptic slang for "Army", sends in some choppers full of soldiers. However, they arrive too late, and discover that the president has already been taken hostage by a bunch of the crazies that inhabit Manhattan. The aforementioned crazies send out an emissary, who tells the USPF troops to leave Manhattan immediately, or they will kill Mr. President. So the USPF guys do the sissy thing and return to their base on Liberty Island. Thankfully, the movie picks up a bit at this point, as the USPF does the unthinkable. No, really! I'll bet you one million, billion, trillion Disney dollars that you'll never guess what's going to happen next! You guessed it. The USPF cuts a deal with our buddy Snake, in that, if he rescues the president, all of his crimes will be pardoned, and he won't be incarcerated in Manhattan. There's only one catch though, and it's sort of a major fucking catch, by the way. If Snake doesn't return within twenty four hours, at which time the president's survival is no longer a necessity, then Snake will be killed by two microscopic explosives that the USPF implanted in his neck, while he was asleep, or taking a piss, or something. So there you have it. Now we have a fully functioning, albeit crappy, premise for our low budget movie. Excellent move, John Carpenter. You have proven to be a most worthy adversary, in this, our battle of my awesome wit versus your half-baked film. Not long after the countdown begins, Snake infiltrates New York via a stealth glider, which he manages to crash land on the roof of one of the World Trade Center buildings. Bear in mind that this is an alternate past, and in Snake's time, the WTC towers have yet to be knocked down by towel-clad extremists, so don't go all weepy-eyes on me, you pansy bitch. Here's where the movie grows incredibly boring, so I've decided to make this review easier to withstand, by breaking down the next hour or so of film into a little bullet list. Here we go:
With the president now safely out of New York, everyone can breathe easy. You know, except for Snake, since he has two fucking explosives lodged in his neck, ready to detonate. Lucky for our boy Plissken, though, a USPF brand doctor/scientist/dipshit in a labcoat arrives and neutralizes the explosives with some kind of voodoo magic. Finally, we can all relax. Snake successfully completed his task, and with a whole two seconds of his deadline left to spare! Now that's an ending I can walk away from, with a big smile on my face. Oh, wait. That's a grimace of horrendous agony, as the realization that I just wasted an hour and a half of my life, finally sets in. My mistake. In closing, I would like to say that as a fan of Kurt Russell, and to a lesser extent, John Carpenter's movies, I was pretty damn disappointed by this film. Nowhere near as a good as other Carpenter/Russell flicks like "The Thing" or "Big Trouble in Little China", this title is more along the lines of "Escape from L.A.", and those piss-poor Halloween sequels. Which means, in layman's terms, that it sucks. I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone, unless they were deaf and blind. For shame, Mr. Carpenter. Consider yourself permanently removed from my Christmas card list.
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