Escape from New York

It's a toughly told, very tall tale, one of the best escape (and escapist) movies of the season. Read full review

The pleasures are right in your face, beginning with the million-dollar idea of turning NYC into a walled-off prison where criminals run free. Even born-and-raised New Yorkers (of which Carpenter was decidedly not) could smile at that histrionic setup; it’s an outsider’s joke made funny by our willingness to be entertained. Read full review

It has got an intriguing premise, an effective cast, and it has been expertly mounted. Read full review

Boasting one of the most iconic characters ever in Plissken, and an effective sci-fi set-up, this is entertainment of the highest order. Read full review

Carpenter's grittily convincing New York-in-decay remains the film's best element. Never particularly suspenseful and hampered by a finale that almost literally steers the plot toward a dead end, Escape only intermittently finds Carpenter flexing his directorial muscles. But it may be his most visionary film: Escape allowed him to build a future out of scraps from the past. Read full review

Director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill, the team responsible for "Halloween" and "The Fog," have come up with another B-movie thriller whose ambitions get exceeded by respectable results. [10 July 1981, p.17]

A generally gripping actioner, the film can also be read as a percipient satire of a society irreparably split along lines of class and race. Read full review

Although execution doesn’t quite live up to the fabulous premise, Escape from New York is a solidly satisfying actioner. Read full review

Escape from New York isn't really science fiction -- it's an action flick set in a futuristic setting. Epic potential for a masterful, gripping tale is abandoned in favor of cheap thrills. Read full review

For about half the film, Carpenter's narrative economy and explosive visual style (incorporating some marvellous model work of the new Manhattan skyline) promise wonders. The trouble is that his characters neither develop nor interact dynamically, so the plot gradually winds down into predictable though highly enjoyable histrionics. Read full review

The movie is never less than entertaining, but it fails to satisfy—it gives us too little of too much. Oddly, much of its pleasure is in the acting, which up to this point hadn't been Carpenter's strong suit: Donald Pleasence, Adrienne Barbeau, and Harry Dean Stanton offer excellent turns. Read full review

Escape From New York gets more conventional as it goes along, settling for chases and narrow escapes when it could have had wild social satire as well. Carpenter has a deeply ingrained B-movie sensibility--which is both his strength and limitation. He does clean work, but settles for too little. [27 July 1981, p. 75]