John Carpenter directs Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi and A.J. Langer in this belated sequel to his ripped and satirical cult classic. 

The once dream team of Carpenter and Russell revives Snake Plissken for this depressing trundle over old ground. The satire is weak and dated. The action sparse and haphazardly executed. The whole thing has that nasty mid 90s palate (burned purple / electric greens and blues / mustard yellow) of a film made with potential action figures as the overriding design concern. Godwaful early, rushed CGI over easy to produce practical effects. Fuck… Why is this quite so bad given the talent? There are sparks of hope in Bruce Campbell’s cameo as a psychotic plastic surgeon and A J Langer’s True Love Waits rejecting, gun totingly rebellious president’s daughter but they get either too little screentime or seem permanently excluded in the mid ground of every shot respectively. Buscemi enters into the spirit of the original despite the reality of the actual film shambling apart about him, Russell does the best he can while essentially wearing a bin liner for most of the runtime. He’s still gravelly enough and can fire an assault rifle with that old dismissive cool but as an invested co-writer / producer here maybe he could have at least suggested with only 10 hours to live a man under the gun like Snake really wouldn’t spend his first 90 minutes seemingly getting dressed (in that bin liner). The movie entire actually feels to modern eyes like a series of glitching video game cut scenes (character after character leap out of nowhere to tell an avatar where to go next) and that is a criticism I would also level against A Good Day to Die Hard. And what was depressing as such in that recent misguided sequel is just plain unusual here as EfLA precedes such console games by at least a decade. That does not make this joyless mess in any way ahead of its time… just a clunky continuation of a far better film that apparently should have been left as a solo adventure.

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