Former Gulf War hero Rowdy Welles is framed for murder by unscrupulous CIA boss Dick Althorp. As his price of freedom, Welles is ordered to undertake a deadly mission to destroy a nuclear processing plant in a foreign nation, owned by dangerous tyrant Lothar Krasna.
In 1996, brash L.A. detective John Spartan and maniac killer Simon Phoenix are both sentenced to decades in a cryogenic prison as punishment for a rescue mission gone wrong. When Phoenix escapes 36 years later to wreak havoc on the future, Spartan is awakened to capture his nemesis the old-fashioned way.