Demolition Man
From AwardAnnals
| Director(s) | Marco Brambilla |
|---|---|
| Distributor | Warner Home Video |
| Honors | |
| Years before the fast-food chain hired a talking chihuahua as its official spokeshound, Taco Bell got some high-profile product placement in this dopey thriller set in the year 2032, when the sprawling megacity of “San Angeles” has banned violence and profanity, and where virtually all the restaurants are Taco Bells. (So much for democracy!) Sylvester Stallone plays an ex-cop who’s been thawed out after 36 years of imprisonment for manslaughter, and Wesley Snipes plays his nemesis who also emerges from deep-freeze and proceeds to wreak havoc. It’s not nearly as… | |
Honors
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Years before the fast-food chain hired a talking chihuahua as its official spokeshound, Taco Bell got some high-profile product placement in this dopey thriller set in the year 2032, when the sprawling megacity of “San Angeles” has banned violence and profanity, and where virtually all the restaurants are Taco Bells. (So much for democracy!) Sylvester Stallone plays an ex-cop who’s been thawed out after 36 years of imprisonment for manslaughter, and Wesley Snipes plays his nemesis who also emerges from deep-freeze and proceeds to wreak havoc. It’s not nearly as funny as the similarly plotted Austin Powers,; but this special-effects-laden comedy-thriller does have a few highlights, including the pre-stardom Sandra Bullock as the cop-trainee who teaches Stallone proper behavior (and sexual etiquette) in the future’s conservative society. Co-starring is Rob Schneider as a frantic sidekick who matches Stallone’s one-liners with idiotic wit. —Jeff Shannon
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Searching for new directions, Sylvester Stallone starred in this farcical, 1993 SF piece about an ex-cop (Stallone) freed from 36 years of forced hibernation to help catch a criminal (Wesley Snipes) who released himself from a similar incarceration. The futuristic story finds Los Angeles a sea of Taco Bells and enforced peace and within that satiric overview Stallone’s character becomes a gun-toting fish out of water. The film plays like a live-action cartoon and while there is nothing particularly wrong with that, Demolition Man is a rather flat experience. The irony of a peaceable society that both requires and despises its bloody saviours has been captured far more profoundly in movies like Dirty Harry. Sandra Bullock costars. —Tom Keogh
