`ESCAPE' PLAYS OUT AS ANTI-`INDEPENDENCE DAY'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

The folks who brought us ``Escape From New York'' 15 years ago are back with seven times the budget for ``John Carpenter's Escape From L.A.'' The new movie is bigger but not necessarily better-looking; a tribute, in its cockeyed way, to Carpenter's unique gift for turning provocative sci-fi concepts into trashy satire.

As far as ``Escape From L.A.'' goes, the concept is a doozy. In 2013, 15 years after an earthquake has separated the Los Angeles Basin and Orange County from the mainland, a religious fanatic president (Cliff Robertson) has turned the United States into a moral dictatorship. Anyone who breaks a whole passel of new laws - from eating fatty food to unauthorized marriage - is forcibly exiled across the San Fernando Sea to the crumbling, lawless isle of L.A.

But the president's rebellious daughter Utopia (``My So-Called Life's'' A.J. Langer) has run off to Tinseltown with a device that could end civilization as we know it. She has presented it to her new boyfriend, brutal South American revolutionary Cuervo Jones (George Corraface), who's about to launch an invasion of the United States from his anarchic island stronghold.

Enter Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, wearing the same black leather he did in ``New York,'' but at least outfitted with a spanking new eye patch). Blackmailed with the usual lethal virus injection, the authority-hating mercenary has one night to hit the island, find Cuervo and Utopia among the rubble, retrieve the doomsday device and get his antidote.

But it's not gonna be that easy. Plissken may be the baddest guy in the whole town - Russell hisses all of his dialogue like he's Clint Eastwood with lockjaw, just to ensure you get the point - but he has a lot of weirdos to get past first. Not to mention an army of grimy extras that surely sewed up every biker and hooker costume on the planet.

There's a burnt-out surfer (Peter Fonda), waiting on the beach in Hollywood for that next big wave. There's the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills (Bruce Campbell), who's into some horrifically heavy face lifting. And there's Taslima (Valeria Golino), a Muslim deported for her beliefs, who tells Snake how L.A. is the country's last truly free zone with her last truly free words.

Carpenter, who co-wrote ``Escape From L.A.'s'' script with Russell and producer Debra Hill, is clearly working some major social commentary in between the movie's wacky action sequences. Some of it's trenchant, more of it's silly, and too much of it is too obvious. In the end, you've probably giggled as much as you've winced at the jokes.

Carpenter applies a similar absurd tone to the action. Snake and company's final attack on a Disneyland-like park employs hang gliders that look like rejects from the last ``Batman'' sequel. And when Snake surfs a tsunami down what used to be Wilshire Boulevard, you don't know whether to go ``cool'' or ``boy, that's cheesy.'' It's kind of the key scene in the whole movie.

Credit, though, to Carpenter and company for going with a wickedly bleak ending that's the utter antithesis to, say, ``Independence Day's'' easy triumphalism. As sci-fi disaster movies go, in fact, ``Escape From L.A.'' is the anti-``Independence Day.''

Totally. After already seeing the world destroyed in such a clean, fantastic manner this summer, ``Escape From L.A.'s'' intentionally downscaled destruction isn't very satisfying, regardless of how much wit Carpenter scatters among the rubble.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Escape From L.A.'' (R; violence, language).

The stars: Kurt Russell, A.J. Langer, George Corraface, Steve Buscemi, Cliff Robertson, Pam Grier.

Behind the scenes: Directed by John Carpenter. Written by Carpenter, Kurt Russell and Debra Hill, produced by Hill and Russell. Released by Paramount Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 40 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two Stars.

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Photo

Photo: Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell, left,) gets a dangerou sly close examination by the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills (Bruce Campbell) in ``Escape From L.A.''