Harry Gay’s review published on Letterboxd:
Sci-Fi September 2020
Watched on MUBI
A fairly bland sci-fi dystopian film that is mostly elevated by the public imagination's collective nostalgia for discovering how cool Kurt Russel could be when he's not prancing around in neon lycra for Disney's Tron. Some entertaining side characters fill this world, and almost dwarf the infinitely cool Snake Plissken. The cinematography and effects for its time were impressive and pretty to look at. The film suffers from some pacing issues that draws out the film extensively. Although things do jump off fairly quickly early on, the pace crawls to that of a snail's the further and further we delve into the city. Wish there had been a little more questioning of the US empire and the police state, but what we got was probably the furthest Carpenter could take it for 1981.