"Once again, Snake has to enter a sprawling urban prison zone and, with a deadly virus implanted in his blood, carry out a suicide mission. I have no idea why Russell is doing a brazen Clint Eastwood impersonation, but I do know that no one who looks this good need croak out his lines in this steely a whisper. Carpenter’s L.A. suggests a Bosnian refugee camp outfitted by Frederick’s of Hollywood. Every so often, we get to feast our eyes upon a trashed landmark — cheesy B-movie mock-ups of the Capitol Records tower and the Beverly Hills Hotel lying in ruins. Carpenter never was the filmmaker his cult claimed him to be, but in Escape From L.A., he at least has the instinct to keep his hero moving, like some leather-biker Candide. Among Snake’s more amusing pit stops: a gladiatorial basketball game in the L.A. Coliseum and a cosmetics emporium run by the ”Surgeon General of Beverly Hills.”"