Science fiction movies in the 90s were all over the map. One year you might see gloriously well-presented dinosaur melodrama, the next year you might give up in distress and learn to appreciate art or literature. In many ways, the inconsistency of the past carried into the future. Some people talked about how the 'movies these days' were full of 'special effects', except in that time special effects were something rare and spectacular that tended to be applauded. That or they were incredibly shitty and overused. In many ways, nearly two decades later, things are similar.
90s movies had a certain quality that no longer really exists in the medium. Many of them were totally unwatchable wrecks, many of them aged horribly, and there was much lazy writing and gnashing of directorial teeth. Such is life. I post here today to summarize my experience with two Sylvester Stallone, marginal, action/sci-fi movies from the 90s. Abandon all logic and subtlety, ye who would be so foolish as to follow me. The movies are Demolition Man (1993) and Judge Dredd (1995).
Demolition Man is an insane movie. Stallone jumps out of a helicopter and explodes an entire building before the title sequence. Everything else after that is awesome, but muddled in a stupid, obtuse, poorly-written version of the future. But none of that matters because that future exists only so Wesley Snipes, playing a gleefully violent criminal, can fight Sylvester Stallone, who accidentally killed 20 children when he exploded the building from the beginning of the movie. Both of them were frozen in time because that's how sentencing worked in 1993's idea of 1996.
Demolition Man has an agenda so broad, and so stolen, that even dogs raise their eyebrows when they see it. The future is a utopia, peace and calm reign, but society atrophies because there is no aggression, no uncertainty, no explosions, and no action. Death is by natural causes, spicy foods are outlawed, and people get fined for swearing. It's the original Campy Darwinism. Sandra Bullock and company say shit in the opening half hour that sounds so hideously, hilariously, clumsily out of place that the only explanation is that a computer was given the scenario and two hours to write it. Apparently only intellectual-sounding words would make the future enough of a gutless wimp for two 90s badasses to thoroughly work it over. "Info assimilated." "Mellow greetings."
In this future, which exists out of sheer laziness, society is childish, naive, and inherited by total fucking infantile eunuchs with too-large vocabularies. But it's still fun. Things get shot up. Wesley Snipes taunts everyone and shoots everything. The whole plot is a weird mixture of old utopia/dystopia books such as 1984, The Time Machine, and Brave New World mixed with basically every science fiction/action film up to its point. It's not particularly smart, or achingly funny, and the satire is dull, but nobody cares. Ten minutes in you know this movie doesn't care. You shouldn't, the movie told you not to. And there's just enough quality action, gun-play, and insanity that you feel okay when you watch it. This was the model for mediocrity. These days it seems awesome only because our current mediocrity is even more slick and bland than the future proposed in Demolition Man. The future-colloquial dialogue is feeble and stupid while trying to make a point about how weakness, pacifism, submission, and herd intelligence are related. Wesley Snipes' awesome action kicks, dozens of quality explosions, at least ten snappy one-liners, and all the swearing make this movie worth it. 1993 was probably just a simpler time.
The case-study in low-cinema clusterfucks is Judge Dredd (1995). It had everything: nerd pedigree, apocalyptic future, chaos and mobs and lawlessness opposed by cold, cold justice. Then you watch the first ten minutes of the movie. Perhaps you remember seeing a trailer in the 90s and thinking it might be an exciting movie. Then you watch the movie and remember how trailers lie. Why should it be compared to an earlier movie which also had Sylvester Stallone playing the lead? The two movies are both 90s crap. One of them is likeable, however, despite dialogue so stilted it set records that still haven't been touched.
Where Demolition Man has interesting ideas, Judge Dredd has half-baked ideas. When Demolition Man is running or exploding, Judge Dredd is awkwardly conversing. When Demolition Man moves on in a timely manner, Judge Dredd is trying to finish a lopsided, unbelievable scene.Where Demolition Man has charm, Judge Dredd has no character at all – just a gang of hackneyed participants.
Demolition Man even has a terrible theme song. Character all over the place. You'll smile at least once. The movie isn't great, but when compared to Judge Dredd it gives me the impression that the same team was involved in the latter film, and none of them gave a fuck anymore at that point. The illogical, inconsistent bits exist in both films but Demolition Man doesn't bank on illogic. Things explode, are destroyed, shot up, pushed over, etc, to make the point you're being stupid if you focus on rationalism and plot. The movie is titled after destruction. It keeps moving between crazy shit in a mundane, retarded world of the future that needs badly to learn some extreme lessons from the dirty, dangerous, and unpredictable 1990s.
That summary alone beats any possible summary for Judge Dredd. You wanted to know whether or not I could write a summary for Judge Dredd? Fuck you. My week is ruined.
I'll attempt one: Judge Dredd is framed by the brother he sentenced to death, and both of them are the children of Mega City 1 and part of a project to create a perfect judge, Dredd is exiled for this crime his clone (or brother) committed, the evidence being critical and reliable because related to the special handguns the judges carry. Then the prisoner transport carrying Dredd and Rob Schneider (who is also in Demolition Man, as a less annoying role) crashes, but they're freed, captured by mutant cannibals, who they kill, then Mega City paramilitary storm in to kill Dredd, and a retired Judge shows up and saves Dredd, and then he's stabbed to death by a cannibal robot, who is killed by Dredd, who then mourns his mentor's death until Rob Schneider says something, then they sneak into the city by failing to sneak into the city, then there's a showdown, then a bunch of clones wake up threateningly and do nothing, then everything explodes and Dredd is applauded by the whole city, then rides his motorcycle to a cliff to watch the sunset, but only after Diane Lane kisses him.
If you wanted to see that movie, you know what to keep your eyes open for, but really I've spoiled nothing. I haven't even mentioned the best parts. Oh you might enjoy it, but you'll always know it was a 90s clusterfuck and that Demolition Man is a better action flick in just about every way possible. Why? I think it's because Demolition Man is self-referential and wallows knowingly in the filth of its medium, laughing all the time. Judge Dredd is dour and unamused, but worst of all is completely oblivious to itself.
There are still sad individuals who can trace the events between Demolition Man (1993) and Judge Dredd (1995) and point out exactly what went wrong in the world in that time. Besides the release of Doom, which made action/gun/explosion fans critically literate in the medium, the world somehow lost some of its magic in that time. Personally I think there's a very real possibility that something... bad happened to Rob Schneider in that time, but that's just conjecture. What could have happened? Why does only one of two (or more) similar films prove to be entertaining?
It's like this: Demolition Man envisions a world where dystopia is narrowly avoided – in ours we continue to slide into dystopia, so watching utopia be revealed for a gormless era of sheep and schmucks, then destroyed by a villain fighting a troubled hero, is simply fulfilling and enjoyable.
Meanwhile: Judge Dredd envisions a dystopia in which utopia is being pursued. However it abandons that theme in order to bring up several other themes, four simultaneous plot lines, and twice as many characters as it needed. We live in a dystopia where utopia is impossible, evil clones or not, and apocalyptic movies can't just rest on a lazily implemented 'apocalypse' where the streets of gigantic city states are packed with well-to-do cyber-hypsters a la Blade Runner (or gangs of retarded criminals with automatic guns).
There's something about keeping a movie simple while suggesting complexity that always plays off well. If you can't do that make an action movie, but for god's sake don't be too lazy about it. People will pick up on that, and you won't sell any tickets, your movie will bomb, and there goes your investment and career.
That's just wonderful!
ReplyDeleteSo many things there.