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I have to admit that I have always been a big fan of Sandra Bullock and I think she is just delightful in this. I find her character, and Bullock herself, to be just so sweet, naïve and adorable. She is both very endearing and very funny as Lenina Huxley, a cop who remains fascinated by the world's violent 20th century past while everyone else just savours its utopian present. That fascination can be seen in several elements and 90s artefacts that litter both her office and her home; her Lethal Weapon 3 poster for example. Oh and I love the moment where she asks Spartan if he would like to have sex in such an unbelievably matter of fact way. And while it's quite a predictable move I also love the running joke that carries on for pretty much the whole film that sees Huxley's attempts at spouting old colloquialisms from Spartan's time go slightly wrong; “you really licked his ass”, “there's a new shepherd in town”, “let's go blow this guy” and “you can take this job and shovel it.” She is utterly charming.
Oh boy this review kind of got away from me! 
Usually with a review I have an angle to start the review with and then it kind of unfolds from there. Here however I wasn't sure how to start so just jumped about writing bits and pieces as they came to me. It was only when it came time to gather them together and form the review I realised how much I had waffled on for. As a result this is kind of similar to the rambling reviews I usually produce for superhero films
Usually with a review I have an angle to start the review with and then it kind of unfolds from there. Here however I wasn't sure how to start so just jumped about writing bits and pieces as they came to me. It was only when it came time to gather them together and form the review I realised how much I had waffled on for. As a result this is kind of similar to the rambling reviews I usually produce for superhero films
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Year of release
1993
1993
Directed by
Marco Brambilla
Marco Brambilla
Written by
Daniel Waters
Robert Reneau
Peter M. Lenkov
Daniel Waters
Robert Reneau
Peter M. Lenkov
Starring
Sylvester Stallone
Wesley Snipes
Sandra Bullock
Nigel Hawthorne
Benjamin Bratt
Sylvester Stallone
Wesley Snipes
Sandra Bullock
Nigel Hawthorne
Benjamin Bratt
Demolition Man
Plot - Los Angeles, 1996. Violence and chaos abound on the city's streets. The main instigator of which is Simon Phoenix (Snipes), one of the worst criminals the city has ever seen. There is only one man who can stop him - L.A.P.D. officer John Spartan (Stallone), aka 'Demoliton Man.' And stop him he does, but not without a large degree of collateral damage. As a result both men are sentenced to be cryogenically frozen at the Cryo Prison. San Angeles, 2032. After being revived for his parole hearing Simon Phoenix manages to escape out into what is now a crime free society. Such an apparently utopian existence is completely unprepared however to deal with someone like Phoenix. With the cops at a loss there is but one option; to also revive John Spartan and send him after Phoenix once again. Assigned a partner in the form of Lieutenant Lenina Huxley (Bullock), Spartan not only has to try and catch Phoenix but adapt to this world which is completely alien to him.
Man I had kind of forgotten just how much I loved this film! Demolition Man is just deliriously good fun. As befits the era, the film features all of the over-the-top, anarchic violence you'd expect of the 90s, but it teams it up with a rather wicked,playful sense of humour; one born out of a very witty script which has a strong vein of satire running through it. It's one of those rare films that on the surface appears to be spectacularly silly and mindless, but actually achieves said silliness through a decent amount of smarts. As far as action films go this would certainly have to be one of more offbeat and satirical efforts out there.
You know the phrase “it's PC gone mad!” Well San Angeles really is a world where political correctness has gone wild. It's a world where you can't just accuse someone of committing a crime because “it's rude.” It's a world where anything potentially harmful to you has been outlawed. So that means no cigarettes, no alcohol, no meat, no caffeine, no contact sports, no chocolate, no gasoline, no non-educational toys and not even any spicy food. Oh and of course there is absolutely no foul language permitted. The whole city is littered with machines which detect swearing and automatically issues warnings and fines; machines that Spartan frequently falls foul of. In this world there has not been a murder for 22 years, and a crime wave is constituted as a little bit of graffiti. So when the deplorable Simon Phoenix is unleashed into this world they are completely unprepared for how to deal with him. There's a great scene where a group of police officers attempt to apprehend him but have no idea how to go about it. They make a request for instructions on how to handle a maniac, and when Phoenix begins to brutally resist arrest one of the cops observes that “We're police officers, we're not trained to handle this type of violence.” One of my favourite of the many great lines to feature in this film.
Most films which depict the future with a bleak viewpoint tend to be harsh, violent places presented in complete darkness. Demolition Man goes in completely the opposite direction but shows that even a world without violence or swearing can still be a dystopia, that it can still be a fascist place if it's one person's idea of perfection and everyone else has been rather brainwashed into accepting it without any questions. And even in this peaceful utopia we still have problems and divisions between people. Here we get a real example of the class system. Everyone who has gone along with the ideas of Cocteau lives a privliged life on the surface. Those who would object however are relegated to an existence in the sewers below. Given the derogatory term of 'scraps' they are forced to literally live beneath the rest of society with Cocteau instructing that they be prevented from getting any food in an effort to starve them and be rid of the problem, forcing the scraps to stage a series of daring raids to steal the food they need to survive.
For anyone who doesn't think that Sylvester Stallone can do funny, this movie disproves that notion. While his ventures into purely comedic films may not have been a roaring success, Stallone himself actually is a funny guy. In real life Stallone has always came across as a very intelligent, witty and self-deprecating individual and in Demolition Man he proves that he knows how to play it for laughs. He doesn't just display one setting either. He generates laughs through the classic action hero conventions of one-liners and loud-mouthed swagger, but also through a more dry, measured approach when it comes to his bemused reactions to this bizarre new world and its people. And unsurprisingly he still knows how to kick some serious ass! And opposite him Wesley Snipes is just an absolute hoot as the criminally insane Simon Phoenix, stealing many scenes and threatening to walk off with the whole damn movie. He is completely unleashed to be as crazy as he wants. It really is an enviable task for Snipes; he is given a character where it seems impossible to go too over-the-top. His character actually kind of reminds me of Batman's greatest nemesis, The Joker. It's the same chaotic madman taking joy in mayhem sort of character. Together Stallone and Snipes make for a really quite electric pairing, both of them seemingly having an absolute blast with the characters and the material they have been presented with.
Film Trivia Snippets - Sandra Bullock was not actually part of the original cast. Lori Petty had actually been cast in the role of Lenina Huxley but after a few days of filming she was replaced by Bullock. /// When the film was released in Kuwait it was done with the Arabic title of “Rambo the Destroyer.” With the Rambo movies being very popular it was hoped that it would sell more tickets if they tied Stallone and his Rambo character together in the title. /// The two original choices for Spartan and Phoenix were Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme was offered the role of Phoenix but didn't want to play the villain. He agreed to do the film if he could play Spartan but Seagal rejected the offer. /// When Stallone came onboard he wanted the role of Simon Phoenix to be fulfilled by Jackie Chan. Chan refused however as Asian audiences don't like the idea of actors who have always played heroes suddenly playing evil characters. /// During the dinner sequence at Taco Bell Sandra Bullock's dress was made of stones and gems which weighed an astronomical 40 pounds. After the fight scene outside the restaurant her character jumps around in celebration, and the sheer weight caused the dress to start ripping. That's why she is holding her arms down at her sides after Stallone walks away.
For all its witty satire though Demolition Man still remembers to deliver on the action stakes. This was a first time effort for director Marco Brambilla and I've got to say that he does a very respectable job, particularly in the case of the action scenes which are quite thrilling and are delivered in quite a comic book style. The film actually opens in quite a dark, violent vein with a thrillingly explosive sequence which seems like it is placing us firmly in classic action movie territory before busting out its more tongue in cheek tone. In fact throughout the film the tone has a tendency to fluctuate between the comical and moments that are occasionally nasty such as Phoenix using a man's eyeball as a pencil topper and Phoenix's own spectacular demise. Speaking of violence there's a great little satirical nod to the present with the Hall of Violence at the Museum of History, the only place where weaponry can be found in this brave new world that also includes a preserved Los Angeles block as part of its exhibit. Oh and I love that when Spartan was in his cryo-sleep, in an effort to curb his violent streak he was reprogrammed with a proclivity for knitting. 
Stallone's sheer disgust at it is great fun.
Stallone's sheer disgust at it is great fun. Both the script and Stallone himself seem very self aware of and play into the fact about how Stallone is perhaps becoming out of touch in the action genre as he approached 50 years old at the time. Though fact that he is still making action films twenty years on now rather dilutes the point! It also takes the opportunity to poke affectionate fun at the genre and the characters that populate it through the eyes of Bullock's Huxley. She observes and takes delight in the classic action movie concept of the one-liner (“The joy-joy way you paused to make a glib witticism before doing battle...!”) and also points out the archetypal characters that the hero can be (“I fleshed you out as a blow-up-the-bad- guy-while-grinning type...but you’re actually the moody-gunslinger-who-will-only-draw-when-he-must type.”) In recent years Stallone has created The Expendables series, films made to playfully rib on the bombastic action films of the 80s and 90s, as well as just being a bombastic action film in its own right. In turns out that he had already kind of done that some 15 years earlier with Demolition Man.
Film Trivia Snippets - At times during the film Wesley Snipes' kicks and punches can have a tendency to appear lurchy and awkward. The reason for this is that in real life Snipes is a fifth degree black belt in Shotokan karate, and his kicks and punches were so fast that they actually blurred on camera. As a result the producers had to ask Snipes to try and reign himself in and slow down his actions. /// In some non-American releases of the film the references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut as that was a much more recognisable brand in many foreign territories. These changes included voice dubbing and using special effects to alter the logos in post production. /// Demolition Man made a number of predictions about the future which turned out to be true, or at least partly so. One in particular turned out to be slightly disturbing. At one point in the film we see a list of the cryo-prisoners held in the facility. One name on the list is Scott Peterson. In 2005 a man named Scott Peterson was tried and convicted for murdering his wife in Modesto, California.
Even outside of its big issues the film also takes the chance to slip in some extra little satirical asides which may not add much to the main thrust of the story but nicely flesh out the world and make for entertaining points. For example, at one point Spartan and Huxley are invited to dinner at Taco Bell by Nigel Hawthorne's Doctor Cocteau. With Spartan confused at the choice of Taco Bell, Huxley explains to him about the Franchise Wars; a series of corporate battles and takeovers between chain restaurants that left Taco Bell as the sole restaurant chain in the world; therefore every single restaurant is a Taco Bell. Given the demise of so many 'mom and pop stores', the frequency with which big conglomerates swallow up their opposition and the proliferation of a Starbucks on every corner this really doesn't sound all that far-fetched.
And with one of these little asides the film almost proved to be eerily prescient in regards to a certain acquaintance of Sly. At one point during the film Sandra Bullock's character references the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library much to the disbelief of Stallone's Spartan. She explains that “even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment which states…”; at this point Spartan cuts her off, too incredulous to hear any more. Schwarzenegger would of course go on to become Governor of California. That in itself is pretty damn close to Demolition Man's predictions. But it got even closer when in 2003, ten years after the film's release and just shortly after he became Governor, some people began to propose changes that would allow him to run for President. Three senators separately proposed an amendment to the US constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become President. Demolition Man almost pulled off the greatest piece of prediction the world has ever seen!
One of the first things that really struck me while watching Demolition Man again was just how well it's holding up. The film quite clearly had a very healthy budget at its disposal (in fact its $57 million outlay was only $6 million less than the budget of Jurassic Park which was released in the same year) and still looks very good. If it were released today I don't think you'd have a great deal of criticisms thrown its way in terms of its looks. Its special effects are still effective, and its art and set design are very impressive. The design of the actual cryogenic prison facility is very cool (no pun intended) as is the design for the underworld that the so-called scraps reside in. The technology, vehicles, weaponary and techno-gadgetry are all nicely realised. In fact quite a lot of its 'futuristic' technology has actually now come to pass, or at least some version of it; GPS, video conferencing on handheld tablets etc.
One of the things I really enjoy about Demolition Man is just how fleshed out its universe is; it really has built up this world that it inhabits. I've already covered many of its main components but even outside of them there are lots of smaller touches which seem to have been included purely for the fun of it. The way in which people greet and converse with each other is a riot. They sound like a sort of cross between a hippy and a dork as they wish each other “mellow greetings” and to “be well” and “enhance your calm.” We also see this in little technological touches of this futuristic word. The series of futuristic cars that populate the world do a nice job of creating this advanced society. They were actually concept cars supplied by General Motors, some of them prototypes of cars they would release in the future while others never saw the light of day. In total the cars loaned to the production were actually valued at $69 million. There's also the really cool instance where Spartan crashes one of the cars and we see the futuristic safety feature that is curefoam; a hardening safety foam which completely fills the car, protecting the driver from any harm. In the TV series Futurama we got suicide booths, and in Demolition Man we get pretty much the exact opposite - positive affirmation machines. Computers which offer you pleasantries to cheer up your day; “You are an incredibly sensitive man, who inspires joy-joy feelings in all those around you.” And then lastly of course there are the infamous sea shells; their purpose having remained a bit of a mystery for many years until Stallone addressed it during a large interview for Ain't It Cool News. And can I just say....yuck!!!
Conclusion - There may be better action movies out there than Demolition Man. There may be better comedies out there. And there may be better sci-fi flicks out there. But with Demolition Man bringing all three elements together in a delightful blend I don't think there are many films out there which are this much damn fun! You can easily switch your brain off and enjoy the film as a mindless piece of action if you wish, but if you dig a little deeper there is a lot more to enjoy here; you'll find quite a degree of wit and a touch of biting satire on the utopian dream.