Demolition Man:

Film Theorists, please note: Sylvestor Stallone has become a deconstructionist. Of course, Sly probably thinks that the word “deconstruction” refers to de crew at de work site around de corner. Actually, that’s not such a bad definition. It fits his newest film like a fist in a chain-mail glove.

Demolition Man is wildly violent, irredeemably awful and occasionally crazy enough to be almost watchable – especially if you are half warped and laugh at Jeffery Dahmer jokes. It’s also the oddest movie ever to be partly based on the novel Brave New World. I am not kidding. One of the main characters is even named Lenina Huxley. You just know that one of the writers of this sucker is an English Lit. major gone bad.

The flick opens as a parody of Blade Runner. It’s 1996, and the Hollywood sign is in flames above a riot-torn Los Angeles. Stallone is Sgt. John Spartan of the LAPD, the kind of cop who blows up whole sections of the city just to catch one man. Which he does while arresting Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes with blond hair). Phoenix is the self-proclaimed king of South Central L.A. and a full-time homicidal maniac. This combo insures a double-digit body count before the opening credits.

Spartan catches his man, but allows 30-some hostages to get wasted. As a result, both he and Phoenix are sentenced to serve some time frozen in a cryogenic prison. Fast skip to 2032, where a defrosted Phoenix stages a bloody escape. The 21st century cops of the San Angeles Police Force have no experience with dangerous criminals, so guess who they pop loose from the fridge?

It’s at this point Demolition Man tries to be a satire. We learn that after the great quake – and the administration of President Schwarzenegger – Los Angeles merged with Santa Monica. To prevent further war and violence, the entire society was reconditioned by its patron savior, Raymond Cocteau, who created a politically correct haven that outlawed all forms of bad language, physical contact and aggressive behavior. It’s a perfect new order that’s vaguely threatened by a pesky pack of subterranean civil libertarians. In other words, the whole place is ripe for a head-bashing fest.

This is not the dumbest flick that Stallone ever starred in. But, it’s close, real close. (Actually, someone like Roger Corman could have milked it into a great drive-in piece – it’s incoherent enough to be post-modernist, and its ironies are piled high.)

Too bad Demolition Man isn’t worse – it’s almost bad enough to be good.