Demolition Man (1993)

Director: Marco Brambilla

Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne

Have I Seen it Before: Lives with that long line of R-rated actioners that were waiting for me when I turned 17 and not even the MPAA could stop me. It might live a little interchangeably in my head with Judge Dread (1995). Yet another reason to view Rob Schneider (uncredited but positively pockmarking the film) with suspicion.

Did I Like It: You, know I’m almost willing to say that I do. It is at or near the top of Stallone films in the 1990s. even though that isn’t exactly the decade he shined most brightly. It’s made with a brisk pace, and while it’s humor might be confused for being just on the wrong side of winking, but it’s all in service of its fundamental concept, introducing admittedly stock action movie characters into a classic sci-fi dystopian utopia.

And yet, I’ve got some issues, too. Had the film been set centuries ahead of the 1990s-set prologue, instead of decades, they would have been able to sell the whole thing a lot better, and all they would lose for the tweak is a small moment between Stallone and the one cop (Bill Cobbs) who had been around in Spartan’s time as a rookie, but now is an old man. I might be willing to cede that this becomes all the more glaring as I am writing this just a stone’s throw from the future the film depicts, but am I supposed to believe human society changed that much in the span of thirty years? The pop culture of the 1990s has all but disappeared? Language has changed that much? Sex* and going to the bathroom have changed so much that there’s barely even the language to be aware of the differences?

Not quite.

*Which Spartan seems all too eager to jump into just hours after realizing his wife is dead.

US Marshals (1998)

Director: Stuart Baird

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr., Joe Pantoliano

Have I Seen it Before: I strangely remember seeing this in the theater during its original run. It seemed like such a densely plotted Rube Goldberg machine that me and my buddy immediately decided we should have that kind of ambition and launched into an attempt to write the kind of movie where government agents pursue other government agents, and no one is ever entirely certain where true loyalties lie.

We lasted about half an hour.

Did I Like It: Not a great sign that a bunch of thirteen-year-olds see the movie and think that the kind of storytelling on display is within their own grasp. Gone is the tense believability of The Fugitive (1998) and in its place is an over-written mess. Gone is the eminently smart but still grounded Dr. Richard Kimble as played by Harrison Ford and in its place we have Wesley Snipes playing a Wesley Snipes character who—even if he had his reasons—did the murder in question. Gone even is the implacable modern day Javert of Jones’ Gerard, and in his place is a man on quest for revenge that could have been any other character in any other action movie. There’s a reason Gerard and his ragtag group of agents didn’t continue with a new adventure every couple of years.

I’m proud that I was able to go this whole review without damning director Stuart Baird—he of the ignominious Star Trek Nemesis (2002)—on spec, and generally finding beef with the idea that a skilled editor—which Baird clearly is—can be rewarded for bailing out a troubled film by getting the opportunity to direct a movie nobody could have possibly cared about.

Oops. There I go again.

But I suppose it could have all been worse. This could have been a more direct-sequel to The Fugitive and would have groaned through the better part of ninety minutes to put Harrison Ford back in prison clothes. We got off light.

Blade (1998)

Director: Stephen Norrington

Cast: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kirstofferson, N’Bushe Wright

Have I Seen it Before: I think so. If I truly have, it largely disappeared from my memory. That can’t be a good sign, right?

Did I Like It: So many people view this as an edgy vanguard of the era of superhero movies that was to follow, and all I’m left with is trying to figure out precisely why. The Daywalker (Snipes) is such an obscure character in the realm of comics, even now. It wasn’t exactly like the mere notion of seeing the character depicted on screen filled us with collective wonder.

The early CGI effects are the stuff of B movies in retrospect so much so to the point that I have a hard time imagining we weren’t watching vampires explode in polygonal eruptions of viscera and thinking that New Line wasn’t particularly interested in the film succeeded.

It’s basically a very average action movie. In fact, I might even venture to say that it is the last of the great, mindless action movies that were king in the 1980s before they inevitably started hiding out exclusively in the direct-to-video marketing.

So from where do all of these positive memories come from? It exists almost solely in Wesley Snipes’ persona. He never broods, even when another movie might be forgiven for defaulting to brooding. If anything, he seems to be of the opinion that he’s in an entirely different movie than the rest of the characters. That sounds like a criticism, but twenty-five years later the crowd with which I saw the film may have lost patience with most of the film over two hours (or at least wish that Guillermo del Toro had directed the entire series), we may have groaned with every attempt at effects (“special” doesn’t really apply), but we all laughed with every quip Snipes had to offer.

Is that enough for an entire movie? Maybe, but just by an inch.