{"id":3464,"date":"2011-08-29T21:40:05","date_gmt":"2011-08-30T01:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3464"},"modified":"2011-09-06T10:19:37","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T14:19:37","slug":"br-demolition-man-1993","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=3464","title":{"rendered":"BR: Demolition Man (1993)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good \/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Good<\/p>\n

Label: Warner Home Video\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: August 17, 2011<\/p>\n

Genre: Action \/ Science-Fiction \/ Satire<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A reckless police officer is thawed from a 30 year cryogenic sleep to hunt down an old nemesic in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Special Features: Audio Commentary by director Marco Brambilla and co-producer Joel Silver \/ Theatrical Trailer<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

Sylvester Stallone had already dabbled in comedy, co-starring and riffing with Kurt Russell in the underrated Tango & Cash <\/strong>(1989) before returning to the Rocky franchise for the fifth time, and then bouncing to a pair of poorly received comedies \u2013 Oscar<\/strong> (1991) and the horribly titled Stop or My Mom Will Shoot<\/strong> (1992) \u2013 before returning to the action genre in Cliffhanger<\/strong> (1993).<\/p>\n

Demolition Man<\/strong> (1993) gave Stallone an opportunity to play a fish out of water \u2013 not just a character awoken 30 years after being cryogenically frozen in a big clear-goo hockey puck, but an action star surrounded by wimps, wannabes, and novices \u2013 and the real key to the film\u2019s success is Daniel Waters\u2019 first draft, which incorporated a lot of absurd moments which riffed on pop culture, politesse, and in some cases proved rather prophetic, notably Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s political prominence in the \u2018near future\u2019 and technology being simplified as portable aids, such as the \u2018how to apprehend a non-compliant perp\u2019 using a digital tablet.<\/p>\n

The story of a cop (Stallone) unfrozen to pursue a villain (Wesley Snipes) modern society is unable to handle is a sound sci-fi premise, and Demolition Man<\/strong> is surprisingly well-balanced with comedy, cartoon, sci-fi, action, and style, considering it was Marco Brambilla\u2019s first feature film, and the script was much more tongue-in-cheek.<\/p>\n

Brambilla, who dominates the DVD and Blu-ray\u2019s commentary track, notes the script\u2019s subsequent revisions (presumably by credited co-writers Peter Lenkov, who wrote the TV movie Parker Kane<\/strong> for Silver, and Robert Reneau), and his own influence which extended to sets, colours, costumes, and the film\u2019s overall look of a futuristic but rather sedate San Angeles city after a giant quake turned Los Angeles and its environs into flaming rubble.<\/p>\n

Producer Joel Silver (who appears for less than a half hour on the commentary before vanishing) did his usual job of making sure money was well spent on explosive sequences and practical destruction, and the film\u2019s loaded with tongue-in-cheek references (a Lethal Weapon 3<\/strong> poster hangs in Sandra Bullock\u2019s office), and bit parts played by Silver regulars, including Grand L. Bush as a pilot (agent Johnson in Die Hard<\/strong>) and Steve Kahan (Captain Murphy in the Lethal Weapon<\/strong> franchise), and Jesse Ventura (Ricochet<\/strong>) whose role was considerably hacked down in the final script and film to a virtual bit part.<\/p>\n

Brambilla also mentions a number of small scenes and a subplot involving Stallone\u2019s character meeting his daughter, now considerably aged since his freezing, that were trimmed or entirely deleted, as well as a scene initially shot with Lori Petty playing Stallone\u2019s female sidekick and love interest before she was replaced by Bullock.<\/p>\n

Stallone\u2019s role of an \u2018independent minded\u2019 cop who uses his own tactics to single-handedly arrest scum is, certainly in the prologue, a retread of the grocery store hostage sequence in Cobra<\/strong> (1986). Instead of a car, John Spartan arrives by helicopter, and instead of a gun, Spartan uses brute force to apprehend evil Simon Phoenix before an entire factory is blown to bits (another real building blown up by Silver, as done in the just-completed Lethal Weapon 3<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The name Demolition Man<\/strong> really has no bearing on Stallone\u2019s character, since he doesn\u2019t actually blow up things; technically, he helps demolish things, but they\u2019re the end-result after Phoenix refuses to comply with an arrest. Whether the name was spun from a Police song or was always present in the first draft, the name apparently necessitated the use of the song over the End Credits, where Sting\u2019s name isn\u2019t credited just once \u2013 the industry norm \u2013 but three times<\/em> (\u201cDemolition Man Performed by Sting,\u201d \u201cDemolition Man Written and Performed by Sting,\u201d \u201cDemolition Man EP By Sting on A&M Records\u201d), because his ego apparently demanded it.<\/p>\n

(Elliot Goldenthal\u2019s score didn\u2019t\u2019 use the main campaign art, whereas Sting\u2019s single was repackaged with unrelated concert extracts in an EP CD, which like the triple credit thrust, was the result of a persuasive agent.)<\/p>\n

Warner Home Video\u2019s Blu-ray replicates the DVD\u2019s extras, and as dry as Brambilla\u2019s commentary becomes, it\u2019s still mildly interesting for details on the practical locations and camera tricks. Pity he didn\u2019t focus more on cinematographer Alex Thompson (Alien 3<\/strong>, Cliffhanger<\/strong>, The Krays<\/strong>, Legend<\/strong>), and the script\u2019s development, but one suspects most of Silver\u2019s films are the product of endless rewrites, making it hard to trace the development of a gem idea.<\/p>\n

The image quality is sharp, the subdued, metallic colours quite beautiful, and the sound quite punchy.<\/p>\n

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Postscript<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brambilla, who hailed from music videos, directed the romantic action dud Excess Baggage<\/strong> (1997), episodes of Dinotopia<\/strong> (2002) and a segment of Destricted<\/strong> (2006), but has otherwise stayed away from feature films.<\/p>\n

Waters had scored a career high with Heathers<\/strong> (1988) before spending a number of years doing rewrites on major Hollywood productions, including Silver\u2019s underrated The Adventures of Ford Fairlane<\/strong> (1990), and after Demolition Man<\/strong>, Waters took a long rest before coming back with Happy Campers<\/strong> (2001) and the sly Sex and Death 101<\/strong> (2007), both of which he wrote and directed.<\/p>\n

Snipes was already developing himself into an action star, having already gotten the bug in the \u2018Fly Hard\u2019 riff Passenger 57<\/strong> (1992), and with rare exceptions, he tended to favour playing cops or agents, peaking in 1998 as a vampire in Blade<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This title is part of a 4-film Stallone Blu-ray wave, including Assassins <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>]\u00a0(1995), Cobra<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1986), Demolition Man<\/strong> (1993), and The Specialist<\/a> <\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1994).<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2011 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0D<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ D . Film: Very Good \/ DVD Transfer: Excellent\/ DVD Extras: Good Label: Warner Home Video\/ Region: All \/\u00a0Released: August 17, 2011 Genre: Action \/ Science-Fiction \/ Satire Synopsis: A reckless police officer is thawed from a 30 year cryogenic sleep to hunt down an old nemesic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[687,688,686,685,659],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-TS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3464"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3548,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3464\/revisions\/3548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}