Plot
In 1996, LAPD Sgt. John Spartan leads a raid to rescue hostages taken by the psychopathic criminal Simon Phoenix. After scanning the area shows no sign of the hostages', Spartan enters Phoenix's stronghold and captures him. But before he is taken into custody Phoenix ignites some explosive gasoline, destroying the building. Later, the hostages' bodies are found in the rubble, leading to the arrest of Spartan as well. Both men are sentenced to "CryoPrison," where they are kept in cryogenic storage and exposed to subconscious rehabilitation techniques.
In 2032, Phoenix is thawed for a parole hearing and escapes from CryoPrison, starting a crime spree. By now the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Barbara have merged into the utopian San Angeles, under the pacifist guidance of Dr. Raymond Cocteau. All vices have been outlawed and the police are now incapable of dealing with criminals like Phoenix. However, Lt. Lenina Huxley suggests that Spartan - the police officer who caught Phoenix - be revived and reinstated to the force to help them stop him again.
Spartan has trouble adapting to life in the future. Most of Huxley's fellow officers, especially Chief George Earle, find him brutish and uncivilized. After Phoenix breaks into a museum's weapon exhibition to arm himself, he runs into Cocteau and tries to shoot him, but is unable to. Cocteau calmly reminds him of a job he was revived for: kill Edgar Friendly, leader of the "Scrap" resistance fighters who live in underground ruins beneath San Angeles. After seeing the exchange on security cameras, Spartan and Huxley check prison records and determine that Cocteau programmed Phoenix to make him an even more dangerous criminal and assassin, with the goal of eliminating Friendly. They go to meet with Friendly and warn him. Meanwhile Phoenix confronts Cocteau, with what he has done and demands he release other prisoners to assist him.
During a car chase through San Angeles, Phoenix admits that the hostages that Spartan tried to save in 1996 were already dead before the building exploded, so Spartan spent 36 years in prison unnecessarily. Phoenix escapes and Spartan arms himself with help from the Scraps as they emerge in force to get food.
Realizing that he cannot kill Cocteau himself because of his rehabilitation, Phoenix has one of his men shoot the doctor. They then go back to the CryoPrison and begin to thaw out the most dangerous convicts. Spartan arrives and fights Phoenix, eventually freezing him solid. Spartan escapes just before the cryo-machinery overloads, destroying the prison. With Cocteau dead and the prison destroyed, the police and Scraps find themselves at odds over how to run their society. Spartan suggests that they find a way to compromise between order and personal freedom, then kisses Huxley and departs with her.
Read more about this topic: Demolition Man
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)