I think this is the first time that I reviewed a film with Sylvester Stallone. Stallone has a reputation of doing ultra-violent action films, dumb comedies, and then there are the boxing and over the top films. I am not talking about Expendables 2, but the one where he was arm-wrestling.

This film, Demolition Man, is an intelligent film, and is often confused with Judge Dredd, a film that came out around the same time. This original Dredd film focused on a police force that has to be tough as nails to combat the crime of the future, but Demolition Man seems to go out of its way to go the opposite direction, as I will discuss later. Let me just say that Judge Dredd and Demolition Man, although both science fiction films about a future police force, are quite different.

Demolition Man starts in the terrifying world of 1996. That’s right, 1996 was a terrible year when the Hollywood Sign was in flames and a psycho criminal named Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) roamed the street. Considering that this film came out in 1993, I find it odd that the film made such a terrifying prediction about the future of L.A.. Well, considering that the L.A. Riots took place in 1992, I can see why the screenwriter had such a negative outlook. Stallone plays John Spartan, a cop who has to really break the law in order to stop Simon. Both Simon and John are then placed in cryogenic freezing, which is technology that I really hope that we never really have. I don’t know why this movie thought we would have it as part of our justice system three years from 1993. We really were way too negative about criminals and positive about technological advancement in 1993.

In a more distant future than 1996, Simon Phoenix is thawed out, and he begins to do what he does best: cause chaos. Now here is the thing that sets Demolition Man apart from most sci-fi cop action films: the future is actually a pleasant place. It is not dark like Blade Runner, but it does seem to have a very fascist mind-set. Considering that criminals were frozen until they could be reformed, it appears that the society is reformed into some society that has been far too tame to deal with a vicious criminal. It’s like society as a whole became completely docile.

Since the police of this new world order are completely unprepared for an actual murderer, they have to thaw out John Spartan to deal with Simon Phoenix. From here, it becomes Sly with his no-nonsense cop attitude dealing with a politically correct era. This is pretty much the best part of Demolition Man, and I will admit that most of the action is pretty standard of films like this.

There is one thing that helps make this film and that is Sandra Bullock, who plays Lenina Huxley, a very obvious homage to Brave New World, a book that also takes place in a world that has become a docile fascist state. This film had the potential to be a deeper film, but I am actually grateful that it did not take it. Sometimes I want to watch a film with action, and Sylvester Stallone.