Demolition Man (1993)

I was five years old when this movie came out on October 8th, 1993 and I can still remember seeing a billboard poster of it from a block away near my old home. Produced by Joel Silver (Lethal Weapon, The Matrix) and Directed by Marco Brambilla (Excess Baggage), comes an Action/Sci-Fi/Crime film with some Comedy to it called DEMOLITION MAN. The film is about a tough, risk taking Los Angeles police officer named John Spartan aka “The Demolition Man” (Sylvester Stallone) and a menacing, evil crime lord named Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), Who were both cryogenically frozen the year 1996 and are reawakened to face each other again in the year 2032, where L.A., San Diego, and Santa Barbara were combined into a nonviolent future society city called San Angeles. The movie features a cast of familiar faces from Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) as the 20th Century fanatic cop Lt. Lenina Huxley, Sir Nigel Hawthorne (Amistad) as the creator of the San Angeles’ society Dr. Raymond Cocteau, Bob Gunton (The Shawshank Redemption) as the commanding Chief of Police George Earle, Denis Leary (TV’s Rescue Me) as Wasteland Scrap leader Edgar Friendly, Benjamin Bratt (TV’s Law and Order) as Huxley’s friend and fellow officer Alfredo Garcia, Glenn Shadix (Beetlejuice) as Cocteau’s assistant Associate Bob, Bill Cobbs (Air Bud) as former L.A. Police helicopter pilot Zachary Lamb, Rob Schneider (TV’s Saturday Night Live) as Officer Erwin, Stephen Kahan (Lethal Weapon) as L.A.P.D. Captain Healy, and non-speaking performances by former Governor Jesse Ventura as a member of Phoenix’s cryocon men and funnyman Jack Black, in one of his earlier film roles, as a member of Friendly’s fellow Scraps. Steven Segal and Jean Claude Van Damme were the original choices for the roles of Spartan and Phoenix respectively. But Van Damme refused to play the character of Phoenix and asked for the role of John. When Steven Segal refused to play the villain, both men left the project. Jackie Chan was offered the role of Simon Phoenix but he turned it down because he chooses never to play a villain. Snipes’ hairstyle for his character was the inspiration for former NBA Basketball player Dennis Rodman. The Museum shootout is my favorite scene of the whole movie and the scene that I think is stupid is when Spartan and Huxley have ‘Sex’. The best thing for me was that this movie was shot, with not just the interiors at Warner Bros. Studios, but in Irvine, Orange County, California for the exteriors to make it look like a 2032 version of Los Angeles. I think Hollywood should really film more movies in Orange County. They didn't do much with the television show “THE O.C.”. Although this film grossed $58,055,768 by the end of its box office run in the U.S. and $159,055,768 worldwide, DEMOLITION MAN is one of the best action movies I’ve ever seen and you will enjoy it.