Pure fun, and once you know the whole story of the film and why Carpenter did what he did, you enjoy it that much more.

To give a somewhat brief retelling of the story. Carpenter's last film that was studio owned was the underrated Memoirs of an Invisible man, where Carpenter was forced to change many of his darker trademarks at the last minute, and was forced to make the film he didn't want to make. Being fed up, Carpenter wanted control over his films again, hence going back to low budget films like In the Mouth of Madness and Village of the Damned. Then around 1995, with Kurt Russel's fame being at its strongest ever, Paramount bought the rights to the Escape franchise and wanted Kurt back in it. Carpenter finally adhered and had an original script that was about halfway shot. You'll notice that the beginning special effects with, such as the holograms and the giant scale earthquake scene are suprisingly very good special effects. Then Paramount cut drastically production values for some unknown reason and the rest of the film needed to cut corners in the special effects department, causing the creation of the famous tsunami surfing scene, the hangliders and the redicolous fire at the end.

What is known is that although the first film was very dark and gritty that was everything that New York could be considered in the early 80s, California, was just the opposite in the mid 90s, very colorful, louder, and more rediculous, and IMO carpenter made a great poke at Californian society and had a suprisingly strong political message. Kurt was still in top form, and for the most part all of the actors were very top notch. The story, was of course just little differences to the original film, and always gets knocked for that, but the film is everything that it was intended to be. It was a big fuck you to Paramount for messing up Memoirs, a spoof on sequels on how they are suppose to remake the original but only be louder, and to show that Carpenter was a guy that would not adhere to any studio.

I give it a B on the film as a whole because Snake was still a great character to see in action, but a B+ for the backstory on the film that noone really understood. I think if you expect another dark tale, you will be disappointed.

A-

I liked it better than Escape From New York. So sue me.

I'm not crazy about this movie, but it is kinda enjoyable. And I, too, prefer it to Escape From New York.

Escape from New York is the superior film, but the sequel is still very enjoyable to watch, minus the surfing sequence with Peter Fonda. That was just sad. However, Disneyland, Steve Buscemi and the ending more than make up for that sequence and the mediocre special effects.

A-

It has it's moments but overall its a mess. And that Fonda surfing scene is beyond stupid.

C

I wasn't especially fond of Escape from New York, and this one was even worse. Worse acting - save for Kurt Russell - worse script, and, amazingly, worse visuals. The submarine ride and the surfing bit are really quite terribly animated. Not even an attempt to look realistic. The story itself is such a blatant ripoff of the first that they don't even try to hide it. It's kinda enjoyable, but it's of such low-quality that it's really quite cringe-worthy at times. About the only redeeming aspects are Russell, Bruce Campbell's cameo, the production design, and the end. I thought the final showdown was quite well down. Other than that, this is a terrible movie.

D+

B+. It was campy as hell but i thought it was great.

A silly, cheesy and fun action movie.

B

Maybe the first Logan attempt. But marketed horribly. And to be fair it follows ENY which was weak to begin with.

If Russell did a third it would be epic, but obviously BO would be terrible.

WTF, 11 years younger me.