Most critics find Demolition Man more fun than it has any right to be, and the praise clusters on its tone rather than its plot: a tongue-in-cheek send-up of a politically correct future that knows how silly it is. Stallone’s willingness to play against his own image draws warm notices, as does his pairing with Wesley Snipes, and Sandra Bullock is picked out as the comic highlight. The kinder reviews call the action fast and comic-book in the best sense.
The reviews split widely, and the split runs along time. The notices from the film’s release are the harshest: the Los Angeles Times finds it stuck between loud action and dopey parody, with the set pieces stalling between the opening rescue and the finale, and Variety calls it a noisy, derivative pastiche, praising only the production design. The warmer verdicts come later, from Empire, Radio Times and, most recently, Slant Magazine.