Escape from L.A.
On August 23, 2000, an earthquake reaching 9.6 magnitude hits the city of Los Angeles, causing it to be separated from the continental mainland by flooding the San Fernando Valley (now called the "San Fernando Sea") and turning it into an island from Malibu to Anaheim. Just prior to this, an American presidential candidate (an obscure reference to Jerry Falwell; played by Cliff Robertson), who is also an out-spoken, Christian theocracist, had made a doomsday prediction of the disaster during his campaign, saying L.A. was a "city of sin", and that; "Like the mighty hand of God, waters will rise up and separate this sinful, sinful city, from our country." In the chaos that followed, the candidate is elected as the new President and a new constitutional amendment appoints him for life in office. This President declares that all people not conforming to the new "Moral America" laws he sets for the country (banning such things as smoking, alcoholic beverages, red meat, owning firearms, profanity, non-Christian religions (including atheism), and non-marital sex) will lose their citizenship and be deported to Los Angeles Island. Like New York City in Escape from New York, Los Angeles is turned into a penal colony of sorts. A containment wall is built around the shores of the mainland, armed guards and watchtowers are posted everywhere and those sent to the island are exiled permanently. In 2013, Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface), a Che Guevara-like Shining Path Peruvian Revolutionary, seduces the President's daughter, Utopia (A.J. Langer), via a holographic internet system and brainwashes her into stealing her father's remote control to the "Sword of Damocles" super weapon a series of high-tech satellites capable of destroying electronics anywhere on the planet using a focused electromagnetic pulse. The President had threatened to use the system to render enemies of America "unable to function", and eventually dominate the world. Utopia gets away in an escape pod from Air Force Three and lands on L.A. Island to be with Cuervo. With the satellites under his control, Cuervo promises to take back America with the assistance of an allied invasion force of Latin American nations that are standing by for his signal to attack. Cuervo threatens that if the President tries to stop him, he'll "pull the plug" on the country and demonstrates his power by blacking out the capital (which has been moved to the President's hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, also the real-life hometown of Jerry Falwell). Cuervo also knows the secret "world code", (which is 666), that can activate all the satellites and knock out power for the entire planet. Meanwhile, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), is captured for another series of crimes. The Duty Sergeant (Peter Jason) welcomes Snake to the deportation area, but he instead escorts Snake and leaves him in a vacant room. A minute later, the President, the police base camp commander Malloy (Stacey Keech Jr.) and his aide Brazen (Michelle Forbes) arrive and offer him a deal: Snake will go to the island as an exile to retrieve the remote device. The President says he will give Snake a full pardon for all the crimes he has ever committed if he is successful. The President indicates he doesn't care if Utopia is returned or not, saying she is a traitor and "dead to me". Initially, Snake refuses to get involved, but to ensure his compliance, Malloy tells Snake that he was secretly infected minutes earlier with the man-made Plutoxin 7 virus which will kill him in 10 hours. If he completes the mission, Snake will be given the antidote. Snake is given a sub-machine gun, a personal holographic projector, a thermal-camouflage overcoat, and a countdown clock for how long he has to live. The virus works fast, and Snake is given a device to records the minutes counting down from 10 hours to find the device and get out before he dies. Like New York, Los Angeles is now in ruins, and a hot-bed of crime. Snake sneaks into the city with a nuclear-powered mini submarine which he soon loses when the unsturdy platform it landed on crumbles, causing the sub to sink into the ocean. Making his way across the island, Snake meets an array of characters. One of them is 'Map to the Stars' Eddie (Steve Buscemi), a swindler who makes a living selling interactive tours of L.A.. Next, Snake runs into, a knife-wielding skinhead (Robert Carradine) who uses corpses for target practice. Snake also passes by Pipeline (Peter Fonda), a hippie surfer who surfs the frequent tidal waves that frequent the coastline. Snake then meets a young woman (Valeria Golino) whom directs him to the location of Cuervo Jones camp, but they both get captured by a group of mutant people and held in the former Beverly Hills hospital where they are threatened by the insane and deformed "Surgeon General of Beverly Hills" (Bruce Campbell). Snake uses a knockout dart hidden in his clothing to subdue the Surgeon General and forces his people to release him and the young woman. Snake and the woman escape to a nearby junkyard where after, she reveals her romantic feelings for Snake, she is killed in the cross fire of a gangland shooting. Snake has a run-in with 'Map to the Stars' Eddie again who tries to lead him to Cuervo's camp, only to betray him and Snake is captured. An increasingly sick Snake is brought to the former L.A. arena where he is forced to play basketball by trying to get five two-point basket shots within 10 seconds of each other. Snake manages to defeat the basket shots and earns praise and recogniton from the crowd (similar to in New York when he defeated a rival in a boxing ring). Snake escapes from the arena during another aftershock earthquake and gets away with a little help from Pipeline who shows him how to surf the tsunami waves that wash over the area. Snake hides out on board the former Queen Mary cruise ship located in former Long Beach where he meets local gang leader Hershe Las Palmas (Pam Grier) whom was formerly Bill 'Carjack' Malone, a transsexual and former accomplice of Snake from Cleveland, Ohio, who after hearing about his mission to find the black box remote control device, tells him the Plutoxin virus is a propagandized lie and won't kill him. She agrees to help Snake attack Cuervo Jones main camp to get the remote control device and escape from the island. Snake and Hershe's men commandeer hand gliders and fly to Cuervo's staging area. Snake and Hershe's men land at the former amusement park, Happy Kingdom by the Sea, and in a climatic gun battle, defeats Cuervo by gunning down most of his men and claiming the remote control device. Eddie appears again and offers his help to Snake, despite being a double agent playing both sides. Snake commandeers a police helicopter that lands and grabs Utopia with him as they, along with Eddie, Hersche and her few surviving men, board the helicopter to fly away. But then Cuervo fires a rocket at the helicopter, damaging it and killing Hershe and her men. Eddie manages to shoot and kill Cuervo, but he falls out of the helicopter. Eddie lands on the ground unharmed, but is now facing several of Cuervo's armed and angry men. Snake manages to fly the damaged chopper to the mainland where he and Utopia abandon the helicopter before it crashes. Just then, Commander Malloy, Brazen, and the President appear with a platoon of soldiers. Snake then hands off the wrong remote to the President (similar to what Snake did to Hauk in 'New York') while Utopia is taken to the electric chair for execution, despite her pleas for forgiveness. Snake is relieved, but only more angry then ever when the timer for his life runs out and he learns that the Plutoxin 7 virus was indeed to be nothing more than a fast, hard hitting case of the flu virus, not in the least bit lethal to Snake. Thinking he has control of the satellites, the President tries to use it to stop a Cuban invasion force threatening Florida. Activating the remote, the President hears only Eddie's "Map to the Stars" intro over 'I Love L.A.' instead. In anger, the President orders Snake to be executed, but Snake had activated his hologram projector and the Snake that gets shot is an illusion. Snake activates the device, entering the world code (666), against pleas to stop. All over the world, the satellites activate their EMP weapons at the world, thus shutting down every electrical device, and turning the world back into the Dark Ages. At the deportation center, Utopia praises Snake for "turning off the world", and saving her. The illusory Snake disappears, since he has "turned off the Earth". In the final shot, Snake is a few hundred yards away from the President and his soldiers, who are now looking for him, where he finds a pack of cigarettes on the ground and lights one up. The cigarette box is labeled "American Spirit." As Snake walks off into the woods as dawn is starting to break, he then says to himself: "Welcome to the human race."
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