DEMOLITION MAN (1993) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1997 Ted Prigge
Director: Marco Brambilla Writers: Daniel Waters, Robert Reneau, and Peter M. Lenkow Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne, Denis Leary, Bob Gunton, Benjamin Bratt, Glenn Shadix, Andre Gregory, Rob Schneider, Dan Cortese
Being a fan of anything dystopian, and not being a fan of much Stallonian kind of brings me to a big conflict in this film. We get a negative view of a futuristic utopian society, which is perfect except that they aren't able to fight off anything bad, and they listen to jingles from the 50s as music. And then we get Stallone - all buff, and all bad-ass, being tossed into utopia, just to give it a nice twist. This flick wants to be like a new wave version of "1984" and/or "Brave New World," but kind of fails because of its new little clever twist.
The "Demolition Man" of the title is none other than Sly, a renegade cop named John Spartan in the bad-ass world of L.A. 1997 (the designated year for all apocalyptic sci-fi thrillers of the early 90s), who has an obsession with catching uber-psycho criminal Simon Pheonix (the Rodman-looking Wesley Snipes). One night, he dives into a large warehouse of his to catch him, but ends up prompting Phoenix to ignite the entire warehouse, killing a bunch of innocent kidnapped people. He, and Phoenix, are sentenced to the new wave form of capitol punishment: frozen and rehabilitated through computers. So John strips down, we see some stuff we don't want to see, and he's cryogenically (spelling?) frozen.
Skip a couple decades, and the world of L.A. is now renamed, and has been transformed into a utopian wonderworld, all run by the high priest/fascist/big brother Cocteau (awesome brit actor Nigel Hawthorne), who is aiming for a perfect society. His only problem is a little underground pest named Edgar Friendly (the typecasted Denis Leary), who is trying to rebel against utopianism, and bring back the good old days of high fat, nicotine, and open pornography. So, being the smart guy he is, he unfreezes Phoenix, and tries to get him to do away with Edgar. As I said, he's a smart guy.
After a bit of rampaging around town, the cops, lead by the stuck-up Bob Gunton, decide to unfreeze Spartan, and have him go after Phoenix. Teaming up with the highly energized Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock, before that whole "Speed" stuff), he goes after Phoenix, learns about how stupid and inane the society is, and just gets to kick some villian buttocks.
Now, let me say, the view of Utopia is nice and all, but it's not nearly negative enough. I chuckled at the idea of the jingles populating "oldie" radio, as well as the whole non-touching policy, and the no-swearing deal (which is broken not too long after Spartan and/or Phoenix are unfrozen). The bit about the "three seashells" deal was classic, as well as the whole sex bit (which prompts a classic scene where a giddy Bullock asks Sly if he wants to have sex with her). Oh, and the whole Lenina Huxley name was a nice little idea (Huxley being the last name of Aldous, who wrote the great dystopian novel "Brave New World," and Lenina being the name of one of the chief characters in it).
But. There's nothing really negative to say about this Utopia, other than that the only big restaurant franchise is Taco Bell (not a bad thing, really). The people who populate it seem to be happy, with a couple exceptions. I know I'd hate it, but all the film offers up is how Lenina wants "some action," not sure in which context. The paralleism it wants to make with that of the Leary underground living never quite works out, since it glorifies it by having Sly bask in it all ("Oh! I'm eating a ratburger? Not bad." - this is not a quote, but something along the lines of what he says while down there). Thus the little trite solution at the end - "You guys get a little dirtier, and you guys get a little cleaner, and somewhere in the middle is your solution" - never really lifts the film off the ground.
In fact, the whole bit about the war between Phoenix and Sly is never really that great. Sure, the action scenes are fun to watch, and both of them contribute a lot to the humor and overall fun of it all, but they never mean anything. If this is a dystopian satire, why does the film just shoot it's way to its conclusion? Then there's the bit about how they obtain weaponry: just going to the museum, where there's a plethora of guns, ammo, explosions, etc. Why not just have them duke it out weapon-less? This could have led to an original film overall, instead of this cheap little bit about them just fighting like in all big budget action pics.
On a plus side, this film is marginally fun to watch. The performances of Sly and Snipes are funny, and they have some good chemistry together. Some. Snipes does overpower Sly in that he has the cool-ass villain role, and he takes it to its farthest limits, making him likable. And Sly actually does a good job with the comedy this time. Bullock, although garnering a Razzie nomination for this, has a lot of energy in a role that requires her to be giddy a lot of the time. Leary gets to do a rant, so he's good and all that stuff. And Nigel Hawthorne rocks, standing out by giving undoubtedly the best performance in the flick. Then again, this guy's done Shakespeare, a feat that no one in this film probably has done...well, maybe Rob Schneider or Dan Cortese...
"Demoliton Man" isn't a bad flick. In fact, it's rather pretty fun to watch. But it has failed idealism as a work of action dystopia - a formula that COULD work if in the hands of someone else. But Marco Brambilla, who would go on to direct that Alicia crap-sterpiece "Excess Baggage," just tries to please everyone, and thus fails.
MY RATING (out of 4): **1/2
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