From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Demolition Man released in 1993.
Starring:
Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock
Directed by:
Marco Brambilla
Genre:
Action, Crime, Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
R
Budget:
$57,000,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
6.6
The Synopsis is:
John Spartan is a rebellious cop cryogenically frozen and re-purposed in the future to re-capture his nemesis, insane crime lord Simon Phoenix.
Story:
The main character in the film is John Spartan, played by Sylvester Stallone. I as well as many people thought that this film was one of Sylvester’s created vehicles as he was known at the time to be a writer and provocateur of his own film projects, but this was not the case for Demolition Man.
I suppose the origins of the story starts with Hungarian science fiction writer István Nemere. He wrote Holtak Harca (Fight of the Dead), published in 1986.
Rumor has it that there was a committee somewhere that proved that 75 percent of Demolition Man is identical to his novel. However, the author receives no writing credit or provisions for his possible influence because the idea was sold to Warner Brothers by someone else. In fact Nemere claims that many popular scripts were stolen from Russian novelists by the same mysterious seller.
Mind you, this is all still rumor, because the filmmakers claim any similarities were pure coincidences and said that they were heavily influenced by the book “Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley published in 1932.
By whatever means, Hollywood had their hands on it and Peter M. Lenkov, Jonathan Lemkin and Craig Sheffer began working on tailoring the story and screenplay. They were let go during the process and Joel Silver took over the story, hiring writer Daniel Waters, and then later on Fred Dekker to finish it.
It was first written with a heavy hand of satire. It was removed, and then put back in. Although, you can’t tell that was exactly happening behind the scenes, when watching the film, you get the sense that there is a struggle to determine if the film is a seriously plausible sci-fi movie or a dark comedy.
As far as the comedy is concerned, I enjoyed it immensely as it was woven into the story as an integral part of the world building.
The result is a lot of small ideas about the future that are really fun, taken from a lot of different pop culture sources from the eighties and a few older eras. But what the film seems to be doing most of all is making a little fun of action movies in general by going over the top in a bold way and I think that is the charm of it. It’s not a serious futuristic film. It’s a more of a mixture of devilish whimsy and action.
Pacing:
At an hour and 55 minutes, it may be a tad long, but personally I loved every minute of it.
Challenge:
After the Great Earthquake of 2010 as the story goes, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Barbara merged into San Angeles, a brand new utopia under the guidance of Dr. Raymond Cocteau. Cocteau is the city’s savior, setting up a safe, passive, and sterile society without a defense system.
Being the savior to San Angeles is a noble act, but what he really desires is to continue his unchallenged control over the society. Anyone who defies his rules is the enemy.
He wants to have the leader of the city’s underground resistance group, Edgar Friendly, assassinated and he has just the plan to do it discreetly, reviving Simon Phoenix and setting him upon the task.
At first it seems like a clever plan, but thank goodness Cocteau is not the only challenge in the film because he isn’t a smart one. His ego overrides his intelligence as his whole plan backfires on him, horribly.
This is my favorite part of the review because we get to talk about one of my favorite villains, Mr. Simon Phoenix.
He and the film’s hero John Spartan have had a rather intense war between each one another since 1999, when Simon killed several hostages and framed John Spartan for it.
They were both sentenced to California Cryo-Penitentiary and cryofrozen until Simon escaped his parole hearing in 2032 with the help of Cocteau rehabilitating him with advanced knowledge of combat and computer skills making Simon an unstoppable super villain storming though San Angeles like a wrecking ball of primitive violence.
Even though there is no backstory for Simon as to why he’s behaving the way he does, you get the sense he is just enjoying antagonizing the status quo and especially John Spartan.
What does Simon want? Chaos. It is what he thrives in and on. He wants to be the head of it, cause it and control it. And that simple knowledge makes it so easy to understand this villain. He’s a dangerous but a simple man dynamically acting on his charisma and a good helping of wicked humor. As well, he is so smart that he manages to stay five steps ahead of everyone. He has all the qualities I look for in a great villain! Thank goodness he is a fictional character!
Empathy:
John Spartan is very likable in my opinion because he too is simple. He has one desire and that is to save the innocent by any means necessary even if it means breaking the rules.
He and Simon Phoenix are like the same face on opposite sides of a coin. He is the protector of the status quo, but I also think that he intentionally defies it to protect it. They both hate Cocteau’s new world and try to change it as soon as they arrive.
So I don’t know about you, but here is where we have two characters that I really adore on both sides of the struggle. So when they got together to fight, my emotions were at a peak state, and I really enjoyed every minute of it as they were, doling out the puns, and the one-liners in a testosterone infused frenzy.
The love interest for our protagonist is Lenina Huxley, who’s name is a combination of Aldous Huxley and Lenina Crowne, a character in the book “A Brave New World”.
She is a cop that is alerted to the many murders (or murder death kills) committed by Simon Phoenix. She is really vital to the story because she is pretty much a nostalgia-file for 1980’s and 1990’s memorabilia. She and her partner are assigned to John Spartan to help him with the apprehension of Simon Phoenix.
The chemistry between the modern aged woman and the brute from the past, really works between the two as a means to deliver more hilarious satire trough exposition. I couldn’t help smiling while seeing the two interact with one another.
Technical:
Technically the film is pretty impressive for 1993. The visuals are bold and demonstrates the modern order of this future society. Many of the scenes of San Angeles are just simply gorgeous. This is a result of taking the existing architecture of and adding paintings in the background to expand the world.
The film opens with a powerful scene of an incredible practical demolition of a real building in Louisville Kentucky that is nothing short of magnificent.
The scenes of the city of the 1999 in flames had a very visceral feel to it, because at the time in 1993 there were riots in Los Angeles riots just six months before filming began which influenced the scene.
My love for this movie is really in all of the little details that encompass this future world, the culture, gadgets, weaponry and vehicles all in a practical space for the characters to play in.
Costumes in particular were fantastic revealing character attributes weather it be amicable, rigid, rebellious, or violent.
Simon Phoenix’s costume was especially interesting in the future and revealing of his character. He had actual parts of rubber car tires as shoulder armor which gave him a very post-apocalyptic aesthetic.
I loved it along with the haircut and his colored contact lenses indicating that this character was not just different than everyone else, he wanted to look like no one else.
There was a strong casual military look going on for the police officers, but Cocteau and his assistant had more of tranquil Japanese flair to the design of their costumes as a wonderful way to misdirect the other characters in the film as to their true natures.
The cryogenic freezing process was a visual set piece for the film, that I still feel holds up today. The science behind our ability to actually freeze a human being and revive them may not currently be something we are totally convinced of, so it’s hard to determine if it isn’t possible to do it the way it is done in the film.
Sylvester Stallone said that the scene was "probably the worst five hours I've ever had to do during his career. And it looked it too because he had to be naked submerged in a tub of glycerin and then he had to have a full naked body cast made for him held the frozen position.
Today, most of this would be done much easier in one of the many different techniques that are now available to filmmakers.
What we see of the finished movie is just the tip of the iceberg because the film experienced massive scene cuts which omitted character developments, action scenes , fight scenes, and an entire plot point of John Spartan having a daughter.
Part of me wants to see what the original film was supposed to be at over two hours long… but then another part of me has held a special affinity to the film as it is that I wouldn’t want to disturb my memory of it.
The many cuts created a ripple effect of continuity issues that perplex the audience to this day. However, don’t fret about it. The comic book adaptation and novelization of the movie will fill us in on what we missed, if we are curious enough.
Elliot Goldenthal composed the score and it is no mistake that the film has a very 1990’s Batman sound to it because he was the composer for both Batman Forever released in 1995 and Batman & Robin released in 1997. This was due to his career long collaborations with Joel Schumacher, who had some affiliation with the making of this film earlier in the production, according to the rumor mill.
The title of the film was inspired by the song “Demolition Man” originally written by Sting and sung by Grace Jones in 1981. It was re-released in the same year by Sting’s band at the time The Police. Sting remade the song for the film when he went solo and it was used in the end credits.
Performances:
Originally Steven Seagal was envisioned to play John Spartan and Jean-Claude Van Damme was to play Simon Phoenix. The idea failed to please the actors.
Sylvester Stallone was cast as John Spartan and I feel he was great in this, pretty much playing himself and it grounded the film a bit. He was later criticized for his acting approach. I thought it was a nice offset because, we have all of these wild ideas about the future swirling around in the film and John Spartan speaks for the audience, saying “hey all of this is ridiculous”. He’s the voice of common sense in all of this and without his performance as it was, we would lose a lot of the humor and charm in the film.
Can you imagine the role of Simon Phoenix being played by Jackie Chan? Well besides Jean Claude Van Damme. Jackie was the second choice, but he turned it down because he was loyal to his Chinese audience, which would not like to see him as anything other than a hero.
Wesley Snipes was excellent as Simon Phoenix giving the character a devilishly unpredictable charisma to the point he steals every scene he is in with a raw savvy! I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him on screen.
His unique hairstyle helped to capture a lot of attention. It was said to have influence professional basketball player, Dennis Rodman to begin dying his hair interesting colors.
Another interesting influence is that Simon Phoenix has a strikingly similar hairdo to the character, Blade, played by the Wesley Snipes five years later.
Sandra Bullock had a few roles in films and TV prior to this one, but this was her break out film role setting her up for a string of popular movies. She plays Lenina with a fun goofy quality which seems very natural to her acting style at the time. She is able to pivot from being bubbly and energetic to concerned and serious in seconds. Her emotional state as her character often directs the tone of the scenes she is in, which is a mastery, in my opinion!
Nigel Hawthorne is sublime as Cocteau.
Glenn Shadix was hilariously aristocratic and just a pleasure to watch perform.
Denis Leary does his Denis Leary cynical stand-up thing. We always love that.
A very young Jack Black makes a brief appearance in the film as one of the "wasteland scrap".
Enjoyment:
The film did well at the box office and turned out to be one of the most memorable action films of the 1990’s.
One of the biggest complaints about the film by modern reviewers is that it features major references in the film to Taco Bell or Pizza Hut depending on what version you’ve seen. To me, I don’t really care about the product placement because in this specific case it was cleverly used as a wonderful joke to exemplify the folly of the new world.
But then, it seems as if life imitates art. Taco Bell restaurants are not only gaining more popularity, but also getting fancier every year.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes President in the film, however, in 2003, ten years after this film's release, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California.
Although it wasn’t the first film to do so, the film also predicted a host of technology that we use today.
The film delivers bold surprises in an exciting and thoughtful adventure with and incredible showdown at the end. It’s a wonderful classic early 1990’s action movie with a taste of comedy and sci-fi that works for me. I really love this film!
My Rating:
9.4
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off!
Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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