Arrow Films are bringing out Marco Brambilla's highly entertaining futuristic action picture that stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes in 4K UHD and Blu-ray editions.
John Spartan (Stallone) is a cop known as the 'Demolition Man' because of his habit of causing 1980s action movie-degrees of explosions when performing such tasks as rescuing one small child. Spartan's hot pursuit of arch villain Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes, looking like he's having a great time although apparently he hated his hairdo) ends in disaster, with both Spartan and Phoenix sentenced to be frozen as part of a new punishment protocol for criminals.
Thirty six years later Phoenix gets thawed out for a hearing, immediately escapes and starts causing havoc. Times have changed so much that the police are unable to cope with Phoenix's levels of violence and have to defrost Spartan to fight him. Meanwhile Edgar Friendly (Denis Leary) is leading an underground movement (complete with one big Libertarian-style rant in the middle) in protest against Governor Raymond Cocteau (Nigel Hawthorne) and the environment he has created, and Cocteau might just be the reason Phoenix escaped in the first place.
A fun action SF piece that came at the tail end of a ten year period of big budget action pictures to top line either Stallone of Arnold Schwarzenegger (and there's a gag about him in here as well), DEMOLITION MAN has a decent sense of humour about itself, is well shot and moves at a clip, and is probably the most entertaining of these sorts of pictures not to have either Shane Black or Steven E de Souza's name on them. Kudos are also due to Sandra Bullock who makes the absolute most of what could have been a forgettable sidekick role in other hands. There's a gag in here about Taco Bell on the US version which was changed to Pizza Hut internationally, and in case you want to compare them both versions of the film are included on the disc.
Arrow's 4K and Blu-ray comes with three commentary tracks - a new one with director Brambilla and screenwriter Daniel Waters (who was called in to rewrite the original script. He ended up having a ball doing so and you can tell), and another new one with film historian Mike White. The archival commentary with Brambilla and producer Joel Silver is also included.
Other extras include interviews with production designer David L Snyder (14 minutes), stunt coordinator Charles Percini (6 minutes), makeup FX artist Chris Biggs (6 minutes), and body effects coordinator Jeff Farley (10 minutes). There's also a 17 minute visual essay from Josh Nelson on the state of Stallone's career at the time of the film, plus an image gallery and trailer.
Finally, you get a 60 page book with new writing on the film, limited edition packaging, two-sided poster, art cards, 'Three Seashells' and 'Edgar Friendly' graffiti stickers and a reversible sleeve.
Marco Brambilla's DEMOLITION MAN is out from Arrow Films on Limited edition 4KUHD and Blu-ray on Monday 16th December 2024
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