Wesley Snipes plays Simon Phoenix, a twentieth-century criminal so violent that he has to be put into a permanent cryogenic stasis. Sylvester Stallone plays a similarly violent cop, John Spartan, who gets the same treatment. When Phoenix is accidentally thawed in a benign and peaceful future, no one can deal with him except a defrosted Spartan. Phoenix wants weapons and the only place he can find them is in a wonderfully conceived futuristic museum.