Simon Phoenix

"Wait a minute. This is the future. Where are all the phaser guns?"

- Simon Phoenix "I want you to loot, pillage, plunder! I want ya to steal! I want you to do all the wonderful things that we used to do before all this happened."

- Simon Pheonix to his fellow criminals of the 20th century. "What's new? People have always been terrified of me."

- Simon Phoenix talking to Raymond Cocteau.

Simon Phoenix is the main antagonist in the 1993 film Demolition Man. He is the most crazed and dangerous psychopathic criminal of the 20th century, and only the toughest cop could be a match for him.

He is portrayed by Wesley Snipes.

Biography
Phoenix was a wanted psychopathic criminal responsible for many crimes like theft, kidnapping, rape, robbery and murder. He declared his own kingdom in South Central within Los Angeles, having all other street gangs, drug dealers and even some murderers under his control.

In his last crime in 1996, he made 30 people hostage for trespassing at his building, but when his arch-enemy, LAPD cop John Spartan interfered, he set alight tanks of C4 and after a brief fight with Spartan, he was captured and taken away before the building was blown to pieces. Meanwhile other cops founds the corpses of the hostages with Phoenix being found guilty for the murders and condemned. But he framed Spartan for not caring about the hostages and as a result he too also took a part of the responsibility, and the two were frozen in a cryogenic chamber, remaining there for years.

36 years later, society have changed drastically, with San Diego, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles being fused in one large so-called utopia named San Angeles. Simon was released from his confinement with a rehabilitation programme that gave him astounding new skills and extra strength to help him adapt to the future. The reason for his release was to kill Edgar Friendly, the leader of the resistance group called Scraps who lived in the sewers of San Angeles since the society of Dr. Raymond Cocteau. Simon reassembles a new gang of not only the hardened residents of the sewers, but also half a dozen defrosted, bloodthirsty criminals of the 20th century he requested released from the cryo-prison and kills the man who releases him, setting on his own goals to spread chaos again. Simon Phoenix in a scene cut out to shorten running time shoots and kills Spartan's friend Zachary Lamb just when Lenina Huxley and John Spartan go after him on the roads of San Angeles.

He was pursued by Sgt. John Spartan of the old LAPD once again. During a car chase Phoenix admits that the hostages Spartan tried to save in 1996 were already dead before he even arrived.

With help of Edgar Friendly and Lt. Lenina Huxley of the SAPD along with the armed Scraps, Spartan breaks into the facility and fights Phoenix, who uses his futuristic skills to his advantage. According to what was cut out, John Spartan kills newer henchmen to Simon Phoenix and battles the goon played by Jesse “The Body” Ventura named Adam who did the work for Simon Phoenix in killing Mayor/Gov Raymond Cocteau and defeats Adam just before going up against Simon Phoenix one last time.

During an intense battle, Spartan smashes a container of the potent cryogenic liquid against the floor and leaps to grab a malfunctioning crane arm overhead, as the floor and everything in contact with it freezes solid, including Phoenix. Spartan then kicks Phoenix's frozen head off after shouting "Heads up!", reminiscing Simon's predictable loss of his head, and it hits the ground before smashing to pieces. The damaged equipment in the room then explodes, with Spartan escaping just before the CryoPrison is destroyed, along with Phoenix's decapitated frozen body and the criminals he attempted to set free, ending his reign of chaos forever.

Appearance
Simon Phoenix is an African-American man with shaven blond curly hair and a small black beard. Both his eyes used to be brown, but after waking up from cyro-sleep, his left eye changed to blue. Both of his ears are pierced with silver looped earrings, two on the right, one on the left. In 1996, he wore a black leather jacket with red lining and a black and yellow checker pattern on the back, a grey shirt and black and white stripped trousers. In 2032, he now wears blue overalls bearing the cyro-prison logo on the chest with an orange vest underneath and later wore grey underground combat fatigues.

Personality
Phoenix is completely crazy as well as psychotic, blatantly sadistic, aggressive, violent and never caring for rules or regulations, let alone the lives of other people. Exactly what one would expect from a sick-minded and twisted criminal like him.

Videogame appearance
Simon Phoenix appears in the video game adaption of Demolition Man and serves as the game's main antagonist and final boss.

Trivia

 * Phoenix's last name simply came from the mythological firebird of Egyptian legend which indicated the legendary criminal's desire to bring back greed, cruelty and anarchy into the world, including the seemingly serene city of San Angeles and make all the chaotic madness last forever.