Revealing mistake: Watch closely as Phoenix is about to fight the cops near the computer kiosk: the same two people wearing white robes pass behind the officer with the hand-held computer twice. (00:25:30)
Continuity mistake: When Phoenix throws Spartan over the bonnet of the red car in the museum, Spartan lands in a puddle that soaks his hair. In the next few shots, the hair keeps changing from being soaked to being dry. (00:50:15)
Plot hole: When Spartan jumps through the window in the excavation scene of the museum, he crashes into a room with bottles of drink on the shelves. Surely this room too would have been filled in and the window smashed during the earthquake, and the museum wouldn't have bothered to excavate it as it can't be seen from above due to the blanked out window. So what is that room doing there? (00:49:20)
Suggested correction: It is not an excavation. It is only made to appear like an excavation for the museum; it is all decor to display the 20th century items like the car.
Audio problem: In the European version, Taco Bell is replaced by Pizza Hut, however, when Huxley says to John Spartan that they're going to Pizza Hut, we see her lips say "Taco Bell." (00:57:00)
Plot hole: Even if the 30 bus passengers that were already dead had been burned up in the explosion of the building their bodies would still have been autopsied after the fact, thus proving that Phoenix had killed them beforehand and vindicated Spartan.
Suggested correction: Considering a building fell on the bodies it would be extremely hard to determine the actual cause of death. Phoenix also could have killed them in a way that doesn't easily show in an autopsy, like asphyxiation.
True, but why would they take the word of a known murdering kingpin over a police officer that while may not do things by the book, has always been for the greater good? It just seems way too far fetched.
The lack of soot and other ignition debris in the lungs and tracheas of the dead bodies would have immediately told the pathologists and coroners who examined the bodies that the hostages were dead before the building was destroyed by an explosion supposedly set off by John Spartan. It doesn't matter how badly mangled the bodies were - a tissue sample no bigger than your little finger would have told them everything they needed to know. John Spartan did not commit manslaughter.
Revealing mistake: When Cocteau's corpse is thrown into the fireplace, you can see that it is a dummy due to the fact the the hair is longer and shaggy. (01:38:05)
Factual error: In the scene where Wesley Snipes has supposedly poured gasoline all over the floor, he lights a torch and holds it inches from the floor threatening to light it if Sylvester Stallone comes any closer. Had it been actual gasoline, with that much of it the fumes would have exploded as soon as he lit the torch. It's the fumes that are explosive, not the liquid.
Revealing mistake: Towards the end of the movie, when Spartan goes after Phoenix in the cryolab, he fires several rounds at him with his Beretta 92 handgun and the slide locks back indicating he is out of rounds. The camera pans to a shot of a crane as he inserts a new magazine and is about to pull on the slide. However, when the camera returns to him, he pulls the slide back and a round can be seen ejecting out, indicating he hit the slide release before pulling the slide back.
Character mistake: When the alarms go off in the police station indicating the code 187 all the police officers are confused as to what is going on since they know nothing of MDKs. Zack Lamb should have already known what the code meant, yet he never says anything and just waits for everyone to figure it out.
Suggested correction: I took it as he went into almost shock that after so many years a murder had actually taken place. He says, "I don't believe it," indicating he knew what the code meant but then he kind of froze until Phoenix's name was mentioned.
Suggested correction: Zack Lamb is quite old and it's possible he simply forgot what the code meant. He was a pilot too, not a street cop.
When Stallone first meets Lamb after being thawed in the future, he tells Spartan he was "grounded" after the events in the opening scene so had not been a pilot for 36 years.
Continuity mistake: When an employee wipes the frost of the date display in 2032, it says that it's August 3rd. However, after the 187 alert, when Huxley accesses the parole hearings for the cryoprison later that very same day, the computer says that it's August 4th.
Other mistake: When Simon Phoenix kicks through the windshield of the police car during his first fight with the SAPD, the windshield easily breaks into several large segments, as opposed to spider-webbing like real windshields made from safety glass do. Glass that would completely shatter and collapse into the car from a simple kick would be completely unsafe and illogical for a society that's supposed to be more technologically advanced than ours.
Continuity mistake: During the glass floor shootout at the museum Spartan shoots a light that falls through the glass. Right after Spartan shoots the light it goes dark but the close up of the light falling and hitting the floor shows the light to be still lit. (00:49:05)
Audio problem: After John Spartan crashes through the police station sign he says, "All I need is a needle and a thread." But when the camera is behind him and he says the line, "I really didn't say that, did I?" his mouth doesn't move when his face is in frame. (01:35:35)
Continuity mistake: When Phoenix first gets out he makes his way to a computer and the police come to arrest him. Phoenix takes one of the policeman and pushes his head through the side glass pane and walks away to fight the other officers, but when Phoenix goes back over to the computer the glass is not broken. (00:26:50 - 00:27:40)
Continuity mistake: When Phoenix blows up the door sealing the Armory, it is just about the size of a normal door, but when he runs through it to escape into the main hall, the door is four times larger. (00:47:40 - 00:48:40)
Suggested correction: Phoenix didn't exit through the door of the armory same as where he entered. As he says, "I've been dreaming about killing you for forty years", he shoots the large window that's to his right, near where the cannons are. This is where he exits, which is why it looks bigger.
Character mistake: In the scene where John Spartan goes into the sewers, he has a conversation with a Spanish-speaking woman. At the end of their conversation the woman says "Gracias" (correct Spanish) to which Spartan replies "Prego", which is Italian. Up until that point Spartan spoke perfect Spanish. (01:23:30)
Other mistake: It seems curious that the museum, even in the weapons display, would have functional firearms and LIVE munitions of any sort, even if no one would be interested in ever taking and using them.
Suggested correction: That was the point of it all. This society believed no-one would ever want to get a hold of those weapons so they put them on display to show how barbaric the previous generations were. It's really no different than a museum today putting swords and spears on display.
Factual error: Simon Phoenix uses the warden's removed eye to escape from the cryoprison. The eye is on a pen, and since the retina includes the back portion of the eye, the pen's nib would have not only destroyed the shape of the retina, but blocked the scanner from reading the complete retina as well. There's no way the retinal scanner would have let him pass. (00:18:45)
Revealing mistake: The cables Spartan slices in order to bring down the parasol, have quickreleases on them so that they snap in the right place. This is best visible with the second one. (01:01:50)
Continuity mistake: When Spartan is initially frozen in the cyro-liquid, air bubbles and ripples are in the ice around his mouth. Any following shot of him in the ice block shows no bubbles or ripples. (00:10:15)
