Demolition Man


Title: Demolition Man
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Crime, Sci-Fi
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock
Director: Marco Brambilla

Some films shouldn't really need an introduction; action films that have long since earned their way into 'classic' status and as much as all the “Die Hard” and “Rambo” flicks of the world, Demolition Man assuredly is equally deserving of that lofty title. The clash of the two action titans: Stallone vs Snipes, pitted against each other against the colourful backdrop of a futuristic utopia where police have all but forgotten how to actually combat crime; Snipes armed with all the power and knowledge afforded to him by a corrupt government through implantation and Stallone thawed from cryostasis to bring him down once again, armed with the power to...uhhh...knit?

It all kicks off when Simon Phoenix (Snipes) is given a parole hearing after being incarcerated in cryostasis for thirty years and given the knowledge to escape and work all the technology available to him in the future; passcodes, hacking capabilities and anything that could assist in his task of killing a man known only as Edgar Friendly. When his destructive rampage – the likes of which hasn't been seen pretty much since the last time he was in town – grips the police department, it is Lenina Huxley (Bullock) who comes up with the idea of reinstating John Spartan (Stallone), also known as the 'Demolition Man' for the fact things seem to have a habit of being demolished in his method of catching criminals. After all, “to catch an old fashioned criminal, you need an old fashioned cop.”

Even managing to predict the rise of Schwarzenegger's rise into politics, the humour present in this film comes thick and fast enough to warrant consideration as a comedy. More so than Solo's witty one-liners in Star Wars, Willis in Die Hard, or indeed any other Action flick I can think of do the jokes manage to hit their mark, cramming in those lines you love to repeat and making it look easy. The contrast between the nerdy Huxley fitting in gracefully with the society where anything remotely unhealthy (like physical contact. I mean handshakes here) is illegal and the far more rough-and-ready Spartan is ever present but never feels over-played or too extensively relied upon as a source of the humour. The action sequences themselves are often shot simplistically but they remain remarkably effective, mixing up the manner they unfold so as to provide the tension.

Even the intricacies of the plot which, whilst on the surface seems quite straight-forward, is carefully planned out. The minor details in the society that's been created; the 'bleached clean' feel of the locations and overtly passive nature of the characters right down to the tiniest of details; food, alcohol, sexual interactions, and perhaps most importantly the nature and behaviour of the underground resistance bringing to light a human element and reflecting on man's innate desires without ever becoming philosophically heavy. Quite frankly, there's little that this film doesn't get spot on.

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