History Film / DemolitionMan

* CharacterCatchphrase: Simon says...
-->'''Phoenix:''' Simon says BLEED!\\
'''Phoenix:''' Simon says DIE!

* {{Foreshadowing}}:
-->'''Phoenix''': I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.
[[spoiler:Spartan eventually decapitates him]]

-->'''Officer:''' Greetings and salutations. Welcome to the emergency line of the San Angeles Police Department. If you would like an automated response, please press '1' now.

* {{Malaproper}}: Lenina Huxley frequently attempts to use 20th century slang, resulting in {{accidental innuendo}}s, making Lenina an early prototype for her actress Creator/SandraBullock's later law enforcement character Linda Ashburn from ''Film/TheHeat'' released twenty years after this film. [[invoked]]

* {{Manchild}}: The people living in San Angeles are basically overly-innocent children in adult bodies due to their repressive society robbing them of anything resembling negative stimuli, removing any actual conflict that could lead them to mature in any meaningful way.

* RewatchBonus: Though it's pretty evident after the museum scene that [[spoiler: Cocteau released Simon Phoenix]]; upon rewatching you realize why the swearing machine doesn't refer to Simon Phoenix by name. [[spoiler: He doesn't have an ID code chip.]] Compare the fact that the machine knows John Spartan's name the very first time he curses.

**
-->'''Phoenix''': [[Film/TheTerminator Got to wait that 15-day waiting period? Or can I just, like, take one now?]]

* TheseHandsHaveKilled, followed immediately by IDidWhatIHadToDo:

* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: Southern California became a ''very'' different place, no thanks to a major earthquake and several pandemics - and, of course, Dr. Cocteau's guidance.

* BrokenAesop: Deconstructed. The film's negative portrayal of San Angeles is juxtaposed deliberately against the ''Film/EscapeFromNewYork'' nightmare it was before Spartan and Phoenix were frozen. It's made clear that the Police not only won their war on crime and anarchy, they won ''resoundingly'' - and now, there are no checks or balances to frustrate their descent into a PoliceState. As such, neither the San Angeles government or Edgar Friendly are portrayed as being completely right or wrong.

* CharacterCatchphrase: Simon says...
-->'''Phoenix:''' Simon says BLEED!\\
'''Phoenix:''' Simon says DIE!

* CrapsackWorld: Los Angeles, 1996. And ''how''. The opening sequence shows the [[MonumentalDamage Hollywood sign on fire]], along with maybe 10% of the entire city, and anti-aircraft fire ''all over the place.''

* OutcastRefuge: The "Scraps" are people who reject the CrapsaccharineWorld world of San Angeles above and choose to live in the [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer massive, abandoned LA sewers]] where they can enjoy some measure of freedom.

* PerfectPacifistPeople: Subverted and deconstructed. Due to the lack of crime and war, neither the police nor anyone else have any idea how to take care of Phoenix, and shit hits the fan and they have no choice but to thaw Spartan.

* PoliticalOvercorrectness: Essentially the entire plot setup. San Angeles is a place where attempting not to offend anybody and maintaining civil, peaceful coexistence has arguably usurped the value of life in importance. San Angeles is what would happen if the people who organize proper workplace behavior seminars [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope had absolute power and went mad with it]].

* WellIntentionedExtremist: Cocteau tries to get rid of Edgar Friendly, the only thorn in his side and the closest thing San Angeles has to a real criminal, by taking an already psychotic criminal genius and ''making him worse''. He's also the one who turned San Angeles into what it currently is.

* WhatYearIsThis: Spartan, naturally, asks how long he's been frozen upon getting thawed out.

** This film features references to Aldous Huxley's novel, ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'': Lenina Huxley was named after Lenina Crowne (a major character in the novel) and Aldous Huxley, John Spartan is named after John the Savage (on a side note, Chief Earle and later Huxley, called Spartan a savage), and Simon said during the fight at the Museum (before firing his [=AcMag=] gun):

* SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfTime: The entire mainstream society gets completely overhauled, eradicating violence, swearing, and anything deemed hazardous to one's health, within 30 years. There are people (or at least one police officer) who were working adults in the ultra-violent past society, who are still in the workforce.

* BigBadEnsemble: [[ScaryBlackMan Simon Phoenix]] is a ruthless DiabolicalMastermind whose escape from the cryoprison and subsequent criminal activities set off the plot, and John Spartan is recruited to stop his crime spree in San Angeles. In truth, he's also an enemy [[spoiler:and unwilling asset]] of [[MadScientist Dr. Raymond Cocteau]], ruler of the FalseUtopia of San Andreas who [[spoiler:set him loose]] to wipe out the lawless Scraps living beneath his "perfect" city, and the two spend as much time trying to dominate each other as they do fighting Spartan. [[spoiler:Eventually, Phoenix finds a way around his programming and usurps Cocteau's seat, becoming the final enemy.]]

* PerfectPacifistPeople: Subverted and deconstructed. Due to the lack of crime and war, neither the police nor anyone else have any idea how to take care of Phoenix, and shit hits the fan.

The movie received two video games: a platformer/top-down shooter that was released for the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem, UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis, and UsefulNotes/SegaCD while a rail shooter/fighter/FPS hybrid was released for the UsefulNotes/ThreeDOInteractiveMultiplayer.

** Raymond Cocteau is name after French artist and filmmaker Creator/JeanCocteau.
*** Spartan refers to Cocteau as [[WesternAnimation/TheJetsons Spacely Sprockets]] at one point as well.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: When Spartan asks the Hispanic burger vendor where the burger meat comes from, speaking in UsefulNotes/SpanishLanguage, Spartan says ''¿qué es de esta carne?'' (roughly "how's this meat?") rather than the correctly arranged ''¿de qué es esta carne?'' ("what's this meat?"), although she still gets it. Later, after she thanks him for praising the burger, he says, presumably on purpose this time, ''prego'', which is "you're welcome" in [[GratuitousItalian Italian]], not Spanish.

* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: When Spartan asks the Hispanic burger vendor where the burger meat comes from, speaking in UsefulNotes/SpanishLanguage, Spartan says ''¿qué es de esta carne?'' (roughly "how's this meat?") rather than the correctly arranged ''¿de qué es esta carne?'' ("what's this meat?"). Later, after she thanks him for praising the burger, he says, presumably on purpose this time, ''prego'', which is "you're welcome" in [[UsefulNotes/ItalianLanguage Italian]], not Spanish.

** Spartan's (i.e. Stallone's) expression on hearing the phrase "President Schwarzenegger".

* AffectionateParody: A subtle one of 80's sci-fi action movies.

** Raymond Cocteau, the central figure of San Angeles, [[KnightTemplar believes strongly in the superiority of his own beliefs]] and makes a [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans series of warped and terrible decisions to deal with these so-called troublemakers threatening his seemingly harmonious society.]] [[spoiler: He decides to unleash a murderous SerialKiller on the population, hoping to use the psycho to kill his opponent Edgar Friendly. This leads to several excess deaths as Phoenix is too tough for the pacified police of San Angeles to fight, and eventually, Cocteau's own demise when [[EvilIsNotAToy Phoenix himself decides]] he [[EvenEvilHasStandards can't stand Cocteau and his prissy ways]].]]

* BorrowedCatchPhrase: John Spartan borrows one of Simon Phoenix's {{Catch Phrase}}s.

* CatchPhrase: Simon says...

** The museum's [=20th=] century weapons exhibit has functional and ''loaded'' weapons on display with relatively light security. Even discounting Simon Phoenix as an OutsideContextProblem for the setting, Edgar Friendly could have done a lot of damage if he'd ever decided to do a smash-and-grab on them.

--> '''Reporter:''' How can you justify destroying a seven million dollar mini-mall, to rescue a girl whose ransom was only twenty-five thousand dollars?\\

--> '''News reporter:''' How can you justify destroying a $7 million mini-mall to rescue a girl whose ransom is only $25,000?\\

* PopulationControl: [[ImpliedTrope Implied]]; pregnancy is illegal without a license, and fluids are cleaned and transferred ''only'' by authorized medical personnel.

--->'''Spartan:''' Huxley, enough! This isn't the Wild West. TheWildWest [[TheThemeParkVersion wasn't even the Wild West]]. Hurting people's not a good thing! Well, [[PayEvilUntoEvil sometimes it is]], but not when it's a bunch of people looking for something to eat!

* WeWillAllBeHistoryBuffsInTheFuture: {{Justified}}. Lenina Huxley is very knowledgeable about the 20th century because she is a FanOfThePast.

** Phoenix defrosts somewhere between 6 and 80 of his old buddies. [[spoiler: One looks to die in the sewer fight with another one or maybe one killed and one knocked out, another two go down to Spartan and Huxley just as Lenina Huxley shoots and kills one after knocking out another one, and the rest are never seen again, and presumably eliminated when the cryo-prison is blown up or get away and maybe cops are at the end on the cryo-prison campus hunting them down like with stun batons drawn and running. In a cut scene, John Spartan kills off more of Simon Phoenix's gang in the cryo-prison building. He also fights the thug who did the work for Simon Phoenix in offing Raymond Cocteau for him played by Jesse "The Body" Ventura. It's not known how he defeats him. In the novelization it's not explained or said what happens to the cryo-con Adam played by Jesse Ventura who did the work for Simon Phoenix in killing Raymond Cocteau. He just disappears when sent by Simon Phoenix after John Spartan and Lenina Huxley and they kill the 3 other cons.]]

* HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook: With a sci-fi twist. The prisoners in cryostasis were implanted with behavior modification to give them skills which would make them productive members of society. Phoenix was turned into the perfect criminal (though that's due to [[spoiler:Cocteau deliberately giving him combat and programming skills]]. [[RuleOfFunny Spartan learns knitting.]]

* HollywoodLaw: There is no legally justified reason to put John Spartan in cryo-prison at the start of the movie. A high-school graduate could have taken the case against him apart. When a criminal engages in a violent felony, the legal culpability for any and all casualties falls squarely on the criminal, even if the casualties result entirely from the police response (since, if there was no criminal violently breaking the law, the police would have no need to respond, thus no one's lives would have been in danger in the first place). Second, any punishment that John Spartan would have faced would only result if John Spartan acted with gross negligence, and that is clearly not the case. He had no way of knowing that the hostages were still in the building, since a heat scan turned up only the gang. [[spoiler:It turns out they were already dead, something an autopsy likely could have established.]] And finally, the entire case against John Spartan consists of nothing but the word of a mass murderer with a known grudge against Spartan.

** Also a rare example of this trope applied to extreme ''cold'' temperatures: when Spartan is frozen, a computer display lists the temperature of the cryo-blocks at 1 Kelvin (in other words, 1ºC away from ''absolute zero''), yet technicians are shown standing within touching distance of them. And an example of ArtisticLicensePhysics as well. If they were that cold, the air should be freezing onto the surface of the blocks. ''Rapidly.''

The movie received two video games: a platformer/top-down shooter for the Sega CD, and a rail shooter/fighter/FPS hybrid for the 3DO.

* WrongGenreSavvy: Lenina assumes that Spartan is a [[HollywoodActionHero a blow-up-the-bad-guy-while-grinning type]] but realizes he's more the [[ReluctantHero moody-gunslinger-who-will-only-draw-when-he-must type]]. For his part, Spartan claims he can't be defined by a "type". He's just a cop, trying to do his job to the best of his ability. Unfortunately, his best ability is blowing shit up.

** By 2032, [[VisionaryVillain Doctor Cocteau]] has managed to create a society where crime is non-existent and the physical and mental well being of it's citizens are cared for, allowing each of them to live longer, healthier lives, but to do this, the lifestyles of the average San Angeles citizen have become so heavily sanitized that they are not only fined for swearing, they don't even engage in physical contact anymore, and anything deemed [[PoliticalOvercorrectness unhealthy is thus illegal]], rendering them almost childlike in their mannerisms and feeling unfulfilled with [[NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction nothing to struggle against.]] Cocteau outright holds his society to the ideal of being as a clear crystal ball, and is proven willing resort to [[KnightTemplar excise anything and anyone he considers a threat to its purity.]]

* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: A side effect of San Angelus' "utopian" society is that that individuals like Lenina Huxley are left without anything to apply themselves to even while serving as police officers. One of the reason's she's such a FanOfThePast is because it was a time people actually had things to strive against.

* NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction: A side effect of San Angelus' "Utopian" society is driven that individuals like Lenina Huxley are without anything to apply themselves to even while serving as police officers. One of the reason's she's such a FanOfThePast is because it was a time people actually had things to strive against.