Enhance your calm: Demolition Man turns 30

Enlarge / Sylvester Stallone starred as LAPD Sergeant John Spartan in the 1993 action comedy Demolition Man. (credit: Warner Bros.)

Thirty years ago today, Demolition Man first hit theaters, pitting Sylvester Stallone against Wesley Snipes in a crime-free but killjoy future where even minor vices have been declared illegal. The passage of time hasn’t quite elevated this sci-fi action comedy to the legendary status of Die Hard or Lethal Weapon, but it’s still an under-appreciated gem of ’90s action movies, precisely because it unapologetically leans into the massive explosions and campy humor.

(Spoilers below, because it’s been 30 years.)

Demolition Man started out as a spec script by Peter Lenkov, then a recent college grad eager to break into Hollywood. (Lenkov went on to create his own shared fictional TV universe with the interconnected reboot series Hawaii 5-0, MacGuyver, and Magnum P.I.) Lenkov was a Lethal Weapon fan and envisioned an action movie about a cryogenically frozen “super cop” who wakes up decades in the future in a world largely free of crime, where he must battle his criminal arch-nemesis. As for the title, Lenkov had been listening to Sting’s “Demolition Man” constantly because the cassette player in his car was broken. Inspiration strikes in nonlinear ways.