Demolition Man (1993, Marco Brambilla) (Patreon)

55/100

One-half solid (and intermittently inspired) sci-fi comedy, one-half typically dumb '90s action movie. There's little question about who was primarily responsible for the former, but he's a patron and a pal so I don't want to look like I'm buttering him up; besides, you don't need me to point out all the terrific running gags, only one of which I'd heard about in advance via cultural osmosis. "Every restaurant is Taco Bell" wasn't quite what I'd imagined—thought a sign would be visible in the background of practically every exterior shot, not that upscale dining would be branded as fast food—but Lenina Huxley's cheerful mangling of 20th-century slang never stops being funny, and Waters is skilled enough not only to think up the three seashells and the verbal morality citations but to bring both together at one point in a single sublime joke. (Also appreciated that the automated voice specifies a sotto voce violation, which appears to be half as expensive because few are likely to overhear it. That's the very first instance, too, which is kinda bold as gag construction goes.) Anyway, the guy's getting a little slathered despite my reluctance, so I'll just say that the more Demolition Man plays like Sleeper rather than Judge Dredd*, the more I enjoyed it. Might have wished for stronger comic actors as the two male leads, but Stallone does at least recognize that he needs to be the straight man, for the most part, and allows Bullock's wannabe-bad do-gooder to constantly steal focus. (Pretty generous given that Bullock was still all but unknown. Unless you want to count the shitty Vanishing remake—and who does?**—this was her first really significant film role.) Plus he sells Spartan's incredulous irritation at the discovery that his innate talent is knitting. 

Less impressive are the film's utopian/dystopian plotting and its conventional action beats. There's probably an interesting story (which I'm too lazy to look up) about how Marco Brambilla got this gig. At the time, major studios weren't in the habit of handing big-budget movies to ultra-arty types—Tim Burton getting Batman was very much an anomaly—so it's unclear to me whether Brambilla subsequently pivoted to gallery-type work or was somehow hired on the basis of same. Checked my review of Destricted and discovered that I quite liked his contribution (second only to Sam Taylor-Wood's), though I noted "This dude should never be allowed to make a film longer than two minutes ever again ever [sic]." A tad obnoxious, given that I'd seen neither of his two features, and he does a serviceable if somewhat perfunctory job here, springing to life for the brief avant-garde moment depicting virtual-reality sex. Back in 1993, I might have complained that 2032 looks too similar to the present, but we're closing in on that year now and the visual differences are mostly small, smartphones and so forth. As a zillion pop-culture-site pieces have noted, Demolition Man accurately predicted a fair number of technological innovations, albeit ones that weren't too hard to guess (and some, like videoconferencing, that had been depicted many times before); it was startling to hear a Siri-like voice speak navigation instructions in a film this old...though also hilarious to be reminded that it was made during the exceedingly brief window when one might have expected laserdiscs to be around for decades to come. Anyway, rarely do the film's futuristic elements figure prominently in its setpieces, which feature such low-rent flourishes as Spartan hitting Phoenix with an abandoned TV set and yelling "You're on TV!" (Tell me that wasn't you, Waters.) And the whole Edgar Friendly thing never quite gels, whether as motivation for Cocteau's ludicrous scheme or as pointed social commentary. Feels very haphazard throughout, surfacing (literally!) only when needed.

Now, apparently part of that subplot got cut, which I know because I immediately jumped to what's apparently a commonplace wrong conclusion. The moment Spartan mentions a daughter, I assumed it would turn out to be Lenina Huxley; Bullock's a tad young, since the daughter would be at least 36, but Hollywood has fudged larger gaps than that, many times. And it just seems like the kind of satisfying, quasi-clever twist that a movie like this would have, retroactively "explaining" Lenina Huxley's obsession with the previous century and its vices. When she offers to look the daughter up on her police computer, and Spartan declines, this conviction strengthened, and it solidified when their attempt to have VR sex fails. Spent the whole movie anticipating a final-reel revelation and was flabbergasted when Spartan finally kisses Lenina Huxley passionately on the mouth and the credits roll. Why the hell would you repeatedly mention his daughter and then ignore her? Well, she got cut. Was supposed to be among Friendly's crew (and significantly older than Spartan, i.e. not a baby when he went into cryostasis). These purely emotional scenes are always the first to be axed—see also Ripley learning about her daughter after awakening at the beginning of Aliens—but in this case I don't understand why they didn't just remove all references to the kid as well, thereby avoiding any confusion. Admittedly, that would necessitate losing the first kinda tender moment between Spartan and Lenina Huxley (yes, I'm gonna type her full name every time, in honor of that running gag), but c'mon, it's not really that kind of movie. Feel free to explain once you've wiped all the butter off, Daniel. Also good job beating the traffic on "hurt locker."

* DISCLAIMER: I've never seen Judge Dredd. I did see Dredd, however, and it was Dreddful. Wokka wokka wokka! 

** I resisted Bullock for the first half of Speed, because I'd so loved Johanna ter Steege's performance in the original Vanishing and found Bullock a dismal replacement. That disaster wasn't really her fault, though. Just a thorough miscalculation.