Demolition Man

 2.5/4

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne

Rated R for Non-Stop Action Violence, and for Strong Language

Despite the sky high testosterone levels of Stallone and Snipes, "Demolition Man" works better as a comedy.  Oh there's a lot of action, all right.  It's just that everything is played tongue-in-cheek.    In fact, in many ways it's a satire of the movies that the two burly stars made in their heyday.

John Spartan (Stallone) is a man on a mission.  He's out to get his nemesis, a psychopathic lunatic named Simon Phoenix (Snipes), and there ain't no one who's gonna stop him.  Not his superiors, not the law, nothing.  Of course, believing that you are above the law sends you careening towards a cold reality check.  Spartan ends up cryogenically frozen alongside Phoenix with a sentence of 70 years.  At his parole hearing, the madman escapes and finds that the world of 2032 to be a very different place.  It's a peaceful utopia that has such a low crime rate that all police officers like Lenina Huxley (Bullock) can do is issue fines when the machines catch someone swearing.  Unable to deal with Phoenix, the cops decide to revive Spartan.

If there is one moment in this movie that is played straight, I missed it.  The dialogue is almost always purple.  Either it's lampooning the one-liners from movies that were Sly's bread and butter, or mocking the futuristic utopia in which the story takes place (Taco Bell is a high class restaurant).  The best moments are when Lenina explains how everything that Spartan used to do isn't done anymore or done in a totally vanilla way.  You'll never think of seashells the same way again.

I imagine that as action stars Stallone and Snipes got their fair share of flack for the ultra violence in their films.  Perhaps this is them returning the favor.  2032 San Angeles (not kidding about this) is so perfect, so peaceful, so placid that even Pope Francis would go insane.  The two stars have a ball both mocking and destroying this futuristic commune.

Stallone deserves credit for having the guts to make fun of himself.  John Spartan is a one-man wrecking crew who "doesn't play by the rules."  You know the type.  But Sly plays the character with just a hint of self-awareness to let us know that he's in on the joke.  He's too broad (no pun intended), too heroic, and too dumb to be taken completely seriously.  John Spartan is less a testosterone action hero and more a bull in a china shop, and that's because of Sly.  Wesley Snipes is having a ball playing the nutso Simon Phoenix.  He has some delicious one-liners and enjoys chewing the scenery.  Sandra Bullock shows the screen appeal that would catapult her to superstardom a few years later in "Speed."  The actress usually plays intelligent women, but here Lenina is bubbly and ditzy.  Think a less perky Jill from "The Whole Nine Yards."

Unfortunately, the good stuff is just the details.  The meat of the film is a tired action story that, while not played completely straight, isn't smart or satirical enough to be interesting for very long.  About fifteen minutes of this movie could have been cut out with little lost.  And while I understand that director Marco Brambilla was parodying over-the-top machismo action scenes, they don't go far enough to work as such.

"Demolition Man" has its heart and mind in the right place, but it just didn't go far enough.