Way Before Blade, Wesley Snipes Played a Villain Right Out of Comic Books in a 33-Year-Old Cult Sci-Fi Movie

Wesley Snipes will forever be known for his role as Blade in a Marvel Comics movie, but his career includes several other films that are just as great. In fact, it was 33 years ago that Snipes appeared in a cult sci-fi movie that was just as much a comic book film as anything from Marvel or DC. While it isn’t actually based on a comic book, Demolition Man has everything that superhero fans love in their movies, from utopian futures and genetically enhanced villains to evil crime lords and hero cops stopping the bad guys. Wesley Snipes stars in the movie as the flamboyant and deadly villain, while Sylvester Stallone plays the cop who sets out to stop him.

Demolition Man was released on October 8, 1993, and while it received only mixed reviews, it has gone on to become a cult classic. The movie has Snipes play a crime lord named Simon Phoenix, and when supercop John Spartan (Stallone) is unable to rescue hostages during a confrontation, both men were sentenced to be cryogenically frozen in 1996. When Phoenix escapes in 2032, Spartan is brought back to capture him.

Wesley Snipes Was a Great Villain in Demolition Man

In Demolition Man, Wesley Snipes played the villain Simon Phoenix, a flamboyant crime lord who was terrorizing Los Angeles in 1996. Sylvester Stallone was the hero of the movie, and while this is not a comic book or superhero movie, Stallone’s character, John Spartan, has a great superhero name: he is known as The Demolition Man because of the collateral damage he causes when arresting suspects. When Spartan catches Phoenix, there is a pile of hostage corpses, and Phoenix claims they were killed by Spartan’s actions. Both men were sentenced to long prison terms in a prison facility where convicts are cryogenically frozen while undergoing subliminal rehabilitation.

The story then jumps to 2032, and both men have been in the cryogenically frozen state for 36 years. Phoenix is then thawed for his parole hearing, but he suddenly has unique skills he never had before, including the ability to hack into the city’s computer networks. The problem is that, in 2032, the world is a seemingly peaceful utopia where there is no crime. This makes the police woefully incapable of dealing with a super criminal like Phoenix, so Spartan is thawed to catch Phoenix. Spartan is uncomfortable because all immoral and unhealthy behaviors have been declared illegal.

What results is a movie where a violent cop from the past has to catch a super criminal in a future society where crime is nonexistent, and the government and authorities are neutered. The movie also has a strong connection to superhero themes, as the main bad guy, Dr. Raymond Cocteau, is the man who designed and runs this peaceful utopia. It was an interesting movie that offered a look at a role Snipes would take on in the future in a comic book movie, but on the other side of the law.

Demolition Man Was an Early Wesley Snipes Comic Book-Style Role

Both Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone went on to have roles in future comic book movies, but only one of them was a success. Two years after the release of Demolition Man, Stallone starred in Judge Dredd, based on the character from the 2000 AD comics. The movie was a critical failure and a box office disappointment. However, Snipes had it better in 1998 when he took the lead role in a movie featuring Marvel Comics’ Blade. Snipes went from the bad-guy role to the antihero in this movie about a dhampir who hunts and kills vampires.

Blade was the first real success for Marvel Comics in movies, although it was barely acknowledged as a comic book movie and was sold as an action-horror movie. Regardless, Snipes took on the role of Blade, reinvented it for the big screen, and remains the face most associated with the character to this day. The first movie was a down-and-dirty action-horror film, with Blade hunting the vampire who was responsible for his mother’s death, Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), and working with his mentor Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). The next movie was even better, with Guillermo del Toro directing it while bringing in mutant vampires and a plot to commit genocide against both vampire and human races.

Things dropped off in quality with Blade: Trinity, a movie that brought in comic book character Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Dracula (Dominic Purcell), but one that relied too much on kitsch and not enough on the horror from the first movies. It didn’t matter to fans of Snipes, as he remains the actor most people see in the role of Blade. He even appeared in Deadpool & Wolverine as one of the biggest surprises in that movie. It was also easy to see him as a superhero, especially coming off his role as Simon Phoenix in Demolition Man, a performance that proved he could do comic book action on a large scale.

What are your best memories of Demolition Man? Let us know your favorite Wesley Snipes movie moments in the comments below.