With the current blockbuster season revamping old toy lines into earnestly over-plotted visual CGI nightmares. Let us go back to 1996 when John Carpenter made a sequel/remake/parody of his own post-apocalyptic B-film classic Escape From New York. Escape from L.A. has all the hallmarks of a sequel, a familiar plot that recycles much of what was loved in the original and a much bigger budget, yet for one reason or another, Carpenter decided to do almost all of the special effects work with models and mattes. It adds a goofy charm to the film, which I have to imagine was intentional. Carpenter’s willingness to go boldy into wacky territory with Escape From L.A., gives the film a certain wit as a spoof of some of the concerns of the various boroughs: plastic surgery, star-fucking, beach culture but also on action-shoot-em-up filmmaking in general. The last part may have turned many fans of the original (which, lets face it, is silly-fun in its own right) away from the sequel and not made any headway in critical or popular circles, but there are a small and dedicated group who do love this old-school candy confection.

And never the idiom of the film more fully on display than in this particular Deux Ex Machina. Snake has just been shot and escaped from gladiatorial basketball, but has to get across town to find Hershe Las Palmas (Pam Grier) and her band of hand-gliding warriors with no time to spare. So, falling down a gully, he finds Peter Fonda, here playing a Zen surfer, suited up in his a wet suit, surfboard in hand. Conveniently giving Snake a second board (begging the question for what is coming, why he’d bring a second board, or park his jeep down in the ditch for that matter), they wait a few seconds for ‘Tsumani,’ the big one, a wave of water purging through the sunken city streets. If that isn’t enough, while surfing with a bullet in his thigh, Snake spots Map-To-The-Stars-Eddie, (Steve Buscemi standing in for Ernest Borgnine’s Cabbie, just not as nice) and transfers from the surfboard to the back of Eddie’s car. Buscemi’s expression and muttering one-liner is priceless. With a well timed jump wherein the scene switches seemlessly to driving stuntwork as the wave passes onward. The complete lack of veracity to the look or plausibility (or because of it), make the scene pretty glorious.