johnnyboyz A measure of how bad "Demolition Man" is lies in the fact the IMDb's trivia pages inform me that both Steven Seagal AND Jean-Claude Van Damme turned the film down. The reason? We may never know, but Marco Brambilla's film certainly has that 'numbing' quality and sense of overuse of action which would not have been out of place in a feature starring the aforementioned stars. I think it would be wrong to say that there lies not an interesting idea at the epicentre of "Demolition Man", but anyone would be damned if they admit to what the final product resembles is the best way to go about executing it.Sylvester Stallone plays John Spartan, an all-action police officer in the LAPD occupying a dystopian then-future set in accordance to the film's 1993 release. Crime, despite the law now essentially coming to resemble what some armies around the world might look like, is overrunning the city to the extent that the "Hollywood" sign is permanently alight. Perhaps there is a hidden subtext to this dramatic opening vista. Perhaps not. Filmed in the aftermath of the riots which were induced post-Rodney King fiasco, buildings are ruined; gunfire sprays up from the ground at patrol choppers and rubble often dominates the ground.For reasons unexplained, Spartan is hunting a stock psychopath in the form of Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), who this time has overrun a building with a gang of thugs and is holding some hostages he intends on killing. We sense the two share a backstory, in the mould of Batman and The Joker, but it is never clear. Phoenix is not an especially interesting villain – his reasoning for what he does seems to be to merely invoke chaos at a time when all law and civility has broken down. Spartan eventually apprehends his man, but the police force denigrates him for his blasé approach which leads to the building blowing up and the hostages dying.Consequently, Spartan is frozen in ice, without being killed, so that he may be thawed and possibly paroled at a future date. This should strike us as strange for the fact much of what lies behind a prisoner being granted parole in the first place is good prison behaviour. Frozen in a block of ice, of course, negates this. However, he is thawed prematurely in 2032 when Phoenix escapes the very same prison (why Snipes' character was not given the death penalty, we do not know) and goes on a rampage for reasons which later become clearer. Spartan is charged with initially trying to put a stop to the violence and terror Phoenix is now unleashing.The entire premise is mostly an excuse to have Snipes and Stallone duke it out in a variety of locations using their fists and an array of exotic weaponry not limited to: Kalashnikov rifles; sawn off shotguns; futuristic laser-blaster guns and, on one especially silly occasion, a Napoleonic era canon. But in a post-"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" era, the hand to hand combat is not up to standard while the action sequences themselves are rapid and unmoving.More interesting is the world into which they are thawed, namely a future very much removed from the era they came from: a dreamy, gooey, wide-eyed Utopia stuck in a strange place on the political spectrum between liberalism and conservatism, and one which is now free of violence and anything which was once considered harmful to society – things not limited to: spicy food; sugar; cigarettes; sex and kissing. The pioneer of this world is Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne), who despite being a political visionary, is not adept enough to guard his own well-being following the bringing of other pre-frozen criminals into the new future.Also in the future is Sandra Bullock's existing police officer Lenina Huxley, whose character arc blunders onto the screen when she whines about the lack of crime in the city: "I want some action!" she moans. She'll get it eventually, although is curiously absent during the film's climax when her catharsis of really learning about violence should have happened.The film is a mostly weak exercise. Very little is made of the fact Spartan lost his wife in the interim of being frozen and then thawed and it is not satisfyingly tied in with his newfound fondness for Bullock. Can we remember, by the end, that he was even married? Similarly, the roots of Stallone's character are flaccid – he is seemingly responsible for the deaths of dozens of hostages in the beginning, but maintains this gung-ho approach again in the future when granted the opportunity to go after Phoenix again. Despite craving violence early on, and having experienced what she experiences, what does Bullock's character learn about anything? By the end, when certain twists and turns have played out, we think we've seen something more interesting than we actually have, while the film's heavy reliance on elements from works such as Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" has the film feel loftier than it actually is. The film's insistence on bombarding us with product placement in-between its actions sequences becomes ingratiating, with no fewer than Taco Bell; Armour Hotdogs and Marlboro getting in on the act becomes insulting. Meanwhile, somewhat central to the film is a joke about seashells and going to the bathroom... When all is said and done, "Demolition Man" is a mostly empty, numbing experience.

leubner85 Sylvester Stallone, as a cop who inadvertently kills 30 people during a showdown (accidents will happen), and Wesley Snipes, as a high-spirited psychovillain, are placed in the California CryoPenitentiary, frozen for several decades, then thawed out in the year 2032. The joke is that society has become so systematized and pleasure-denying that it's now a world of wimps. The police, trained to capture criminals with computerized gadgets, have no direct experience of physical violence. Sexual contact is illegal, as are alcohol and caffeine, and when you utter a four-letter word in public, a buzzer goes off and a prissy British voice informs you that you're to be fined one credit for violating the "verbal morality code." (Ice cream, I believe, is still allowed.)The movie, of course, is goofing on the puritan chic of the '90s, the new righteousness with which people are divorcing themselves from their bad habits and incorrect thoughts. But then there's Stallone, the big, beefy avatar of red-meat values. He's a winning comedian in this movie, rolling his eyes at a world that no longer places any value on testosterone. Stallone gets some lite chemistry going with Sandra Bullock, as a cop who's such a product of the post-aggressive future that she speaks like an android. As the baddie, Snipes, hair dyed the color of an upset stomach, gives a performance of operatic schlockiness, laughing in the face of…everything.Demolition Man is as much a piece of cheese as the grade-B sci-fi movies of the '50s, which also satirized, with a kind of touching literal- mindedness, the brainy emasculation of the future. The main difference is that those films didn't climax with 45 minutes of smashing mayhem. A Joel Silver action movie released during the fall is a bit of an oxymoron anyway, but even if it's the promise of overwrought violence that lures people into theaters, I suspect it will be the quieter scenes —the ones with a pretense of wit—that keep them satisfied.

xgray-03873 After watching this movie, I feel like this is precisely what the future of the internet and the year 2017 is like. People that are obsessed with the past, can't take a joke and are being sheltered their who lives. And yet, we have two figures from the past, one who feels like he doesn't belong in the new world because of so many restrictions that will rob people of their free-will and individuality for safety and security and with no way of defending themselves. The other, who was being given newer abilities to preserve the past filled with violence and anarchy, but is out-of- control that the handler, himself can not handle the situation anymore and easily became the victim of his own foul play. While I did enjoy watching Wesley Snipes' performance, I feel as though he's been taking notes from Caesar Romero's performance as the Joker from the 1960's Adam West Batman TV series. But yeah, the acting is alright, but there was actually a lot of charm coming from Denis Leary as Edgar Friendly and Sandra Bullock as Lt. Huxley.Overall, I'd say this movie is worth a shot watching on TV or online.8 out of 10

chadchaplin The premise could be a good one, the end result is not. Every time I have seen this movie, including the first time way back in the day, I have always had the same reaction. That reaction is that the acting is mediocre to bad, the costumes are terribly cheesy, and the scenery/background and effects look like something from a 1970's B movie. Little in the way of redeeming qualities in this movie.