Some years ago (30? Ca.) Scotland (of all places, again, wasn’t that already suffering from British incompetency in “28 days later“?) was scourged by an apocalyptic plague. A virus infection turning every human being into a ravaging – and soon dying – power-zombie emptied the lands and threatened to eliminate all of UK’s – and the world’s – population. Just in time, Scotland was sealed off by a giant high-security wall and fence, what’s in stays in, noone wants to cross that line from the outside, anyway. But the virus is back, and is plagueing London, soon itself a disaster area of unheard-of dimensions. When surveillance discovers that within the new Hadrian’s Wall there actually is life – and plenty if weird variations on it – a rescue mission is being sent in to find the cure to immunity and hence to a vaccine to save the world.
That’s some story, hah? Shamelessly beyond comprehension the script writers steal genres and films – there are motives reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings trail, there is Mad Max so much all over the place that you already hear Tina Turner singing, and in the midst of it all, there is this film that – honest to God! – I would still call one of my favourite 20 movies of all times, “Escape from New York” (may the makers of the announced remake burn in hell, with chicken eating rice corns off their belly buttons all day till that same corner of hell freezes over, please). Now there is no Mel Gibson or Kurt Russell anywhere near to provide a centre of gravitational cool and sex and there is also no mission leader of Lee van Cleef’s stature or hairdo. But the characters are, how to put it? thoroughly re-assembled from the cliches of film and action history: With The Girl (orphanaged when her father let her escape from New York , er… from Edinburgh) being the tough heroine with licence to break noses if appropriate, with knights and cold-blooded horses countering the high-tech world Bob Hoskins tries to steer from the outside, with brilliant Malcolm “Clockwork Orange” McDowell (or maybe rather “Entourage-Hater” McDowell, these days) as the mean bastard in the centre… this is all hilarious fun, and even sometimes the jaw pops wide open when a chase scene results in dismembering the opponents in a ways that forces you to giggle, even if the castle and falcons and swords and wizardry in the old kingdom of the North are nothing short of RIDICULOUS, this is the most fun I have had in a film since ca. 2005 – when I watched Escape from New York the last time. Have to find that DVD…
thomas4cinema 