Snake Plissken is a cult character. Although I’ve seen Escape from Los Angeles a couple of times as a kid (and I remember nothing), I’ve never seen Escape from New York. So, I decided to remedy it.
There are still some key elements that Kojima will exploit in the Metal Gear Solid series. Like Snake being tricked into accepting a lethal timed poison under the guise of “antitoxin,” or rescuing the president, where the goal is actually not to extract the president himself, but what he carries. An audiotape with nuclear secrets, apparently.
Also funny how Snake carries that now-iconic gun of his. In fact, it’s just a MAC-10 with a large silencer and a useless scope, but then every gun has a scope in this movie except the M16, which is the only gun that should have a scope. But he rarely even uses it.
It is basically a strange zombie movie, where the “Crazies,” cannibals living in the sewers, play the part. There are two “zombie” scenes. First, when the girl gets dragged under the floor, and Snake has to block a window with a bookcase. Then later, an escape in a car.
Then, there’s a “bum fight”. Snake and a former restler are given bats with nails.
And the most irrational bit is the mined bridge. This is the most irritating bit. This is a prison island. Who would place mines in a pattern that could be avoided with a map? And Snake acts as an asshole without any clear reason, just blowing up a Cabbie on a mine, then Brain blows himself up on a mine without reason too. It’s like they just wanted to get rid of all of those characters, so they wouldn’t need to carry them over a wall.
Interesting how, by the middle of the movie, Snake gets an arrow in his leg and limps for the entire rest of the movie. And how almost every other character has heard about him, saying things like “I thought you were dead” or “What are you doing here?”.
Kurt Russell plays badly. Actually, everyone plays badly, except Adrienne Barbeau.
