ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Saturday, August 10, 1996              TAG: 9608120122
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT

'ESCAPE FROM L.A.' IS SURE TO PLEASE ACTION FANS

Forget "The Rock," "Mission: Impossible" and "Chain Reaction." Snake's back and "Escape from L.A." is the best action movie of the summer.

So it's a sequel. Big deal.

It's also fast, funny, hip and rude. Fans of "Escape from New York," the prototype for virtually all of today's big-budget shoot-'em-ups, will be happy to learn that this film repeats the successful formula, and adds some wacky new twists.

In 1998, an earthquake turns Los Angeles into an offshore island. Then a right-wing president (Cliff Robertson) declares a theocracy, moves the capital from Washington, D.C., to Lynchburg and turns L.A. into a penal colony. Anyone convicted of "immoral behavior" is sent there. And that's where the president's runaway daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), goes with a mysterious black box that the government wants back.

Enter Snake Plissken (co-producer and co-writer Kurt Russell): veteran, gunfighter, cigar smoker. The feds send him into the city to get the gizmo. He runs into a series of colorful characters (notably Steve Buscemi, Valeria Golino, Pam Grier and Peter Fonda) and violent confrontations involving basketball, surfing, hang gliding and other West Coast diversions.

Director John Carpenter (who wrote the script with producer Debra Hill and Russell) keeps the action zipping right along. His political barbs are aimed at both ends of the spectrum, and the film takes nothing seriously.

For late summer escapism, you couldn't ask for more.

Escape From L.A.

***

A Paramount release playing at the Salem Valley 8 and Valley View 6. 100 min. Rated R for violence, language.

LENGTH: Short :   40 lines