ViewGuide

Created Jan 06, 2009 01:32AM PST • Edited Jan 06, 2009 01:32AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   This classic ’90’s movie is always, always worth a watch if you have the chance. Having Stallone at the top of his game (which is still pretty bad), up against Wesley Snipes as a wise-cracking, violent antagonist, and adding them together with an interesting, satirical swerve on a utopian future gives ‘Demolition Man’ all it needs to be a classic.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Sly hints at some acting, but then just gives up about halfway and becomes the beefcake we all know and love. Snipes, along with Nigel Hawthorne and Dennis Leary, raises the game a little, and Sandra Bullock offers a romantic, yet comical feminine angle. Rob Schneider’s also in it, but mercifully for a very short time.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

   Stallone’s John Spartan conveys both his trademark aggression but also some softly-spoken satire – it’s hard to believe Stallone is actually that intelligent. Altogether, his performance is a lot more nuanced and interesting than, say, ‘Judge Dredd’ – so not that big a deal. Snipes however is the man here – his insane, anarchic Simon Phoenix steals the movie, a ruthless criminal in the ‘past’, and a crazed prisoner set loose in the ‘future’. Having always known Snipes from his beefy turn in the ‘Blade’ movies, it’s quite shocking to see him here as a weedy, hyper and disturbing little man.

6. Female Stars OK 2.5

   Sandra Bullock, as the only woman in the movie, makes her character a combination of airhead and child – albeit a child finally growing up. Conveying a sense of awakening, Bullock presents Lenina as someone for whom the past is everything, just like Spartan – and it’s interesting that a film that so easily could have been thoughtless action pap has a character with such depth.

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

   Raised accordingly for score purposes.

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

   Nigel Hawthorne and Denis Leary are the main co-stars – Hawthorne plays the leader of the utopian society, Cocteau, who is more than he seems, and the British actor is slimy in his moves from kindly old man to underhanded politician. Denis Leary plays the head of the resistance to the future society, and manages to convey the satirical aspect of the movie perfectly through his scruffy performance.

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    The film is a lot more intelligent than it can be perceived as being – it’s rich in satire, and a lot more hilarious than would have been expected at the start. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s a soft comedy throughout – there are some interesting issues raised, and some crazy action added to the mix.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

    Marco Bambrilla takes Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ and repackages it quite cleverly into a Stallone vehicle. The film brings up interesting points, moving from gang riots in the ’90’s through to cryogenics – and the ethics involved particularly. In the future, the idea of censoring profanity or any kind of expression is played both for laughs and seriously – how far does the censorship go, and how would two people from the ’90’s cope in a world much changed forty years later?

12. Play Good 3.0

    The future concepts feed into the different way of speaking – people say ‘Be Well’ as a form of goodbye, and swear words are outlawed and punished (making for some comical Stallone scenes). Snipes’ dialogue is interesting – his secret motivations for his actions in the future cryptically hidden in his insane monologues, and Stallone – when given a large bit of dialogue – manages to say it coherently, even engaging in some satire at the expense of Arnie – though the mocking of the Austrian becoming president is somewhat eerie now with his role as Governor of California!

13. Music Barely OK 2.0

    The music is pretty much anonymous – other than Sting’s song of the same name at the conclusion, it’s your standard action/comedy/thriller fare – nothing to remember.

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Re-creating the hell of the L.A. riots at the beginning (concluding with the explosion of a massive building) would have been a task for most directors, but Brambilla moves from this onto a completely different future – clean, shiny and pristine. The future presented in the film is fantastic, and it’s clear that some care and attention was put in to make it seem realistic. The action scenes are bruising, explosive and entertaining – a balance of all three that is quite rare, and a film where things ACTUALLY blow up as opposed to CGI fire – a hark back to the classic action films of the ’80’s, but with a ’90’s sheen.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

    That swearing is outlawed in the future of the movies is suggestive – you do hear it, but not that much. The film is quite violent, but nothing that would give you nightmares. There’s hints at sex, but nothing more.

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

21. Reality

    Fantasy 5.0

    The whole idea of being cryogenically frozen and reawoken in the distant future is fantastical enough here – and unfortunately, it’s the only aspect that’s unbelievable throughout, as everything else is as real as you can get.

22. Circumstantial Fantasy 5.0

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0