Quick Thoughts: Demolition Man

This past Saturday as apart of my weekly watch-a-longs in my Discord Channel, we watched Demolition Man, which starred Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes... and of course over the years many have come to realize that this movie was way ahead of its time, and is probably more relevant today than it was back when it first came out. Everyone knows the plot, John Spartan (Stallone) is released early from cyro-prison to once again capture Simon Phoenix (Snipes) who has been enhanced to take down a supposed threat to a 'perfect society'.

In terms of action, with the exception of the rather small explosion of the cryo-prison at the end of the film, everything holds up quite nicely, nothing is too over the top and there are lot of practical stunt work done where you could see anyone who is in good enough physical shape would be able to do such feats. A lot of the comedy and wit is still quite clever, from various one liners in reaction to what's going on or full on exchanges that explains the rules of the in-film universe..Sandra Bullock (who plays Huxley) certainly is a great foil for Stallone's Spartan in that regard.

Now there are those who uses this film as an example of Government overreach, and to an extent that is true if you're looking at how dangerous and restrictive Conservatives have become in recent years. Think about it, the extreme-right have basically been wanting to restrict as many personal freedoms as possible that go against their ideals in order to create an 'order society', in terms of restricting access to information, entertainment and basically wanting to turn back time to the 1950s. Yes there are those on the extreme-left that could describe as well, but let's be honest, it's often those on the right saying things are immoral while basically doing them behind closed doors. They don't want you to think, they don't want you to question the status quo.... hell this could probably be summed up by the rant of Edgar Friendly (played by Denis Leary):

"You got that right. See, according to Cocteau's plan, I'm the enemy. Cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I'm the kind if guy who wants to sit in a greasy spoon and think, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter and buckets of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in a non-smoking section. I wanna run through the streets naked with green Jello all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to. Okay, pal? I've seen the future, you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sittin' around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake singing "I'm an Oscar-Meyer Wiener". You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cocteau's way. What he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Your other choice: come down here, maybe starve to death"

Hell, that is really quite relevant to today when one considers that later today (at the time of this writing) there is going to be a President Debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, where Trump basically will be appealing to those on the extreme right to not question his lack of integrity and competence and that anyone who does is the enemy.