Drudge Dreadful! (Judge Dredd (DVD))

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Judge Dredd (DVD)
Date:	23/09/08 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I watched it all

Disadvantages: I watched it all

So how dreadful is Judge Dreadful? Well it's not that dreadful but it's pretty dreadful, the first problem pretty obvious - Sylvester Stallone! Casting the big dumbbell as Dredd could have worked out though. Dredd is man of few words after all and as Stallone is known for his dim bulb slowness then this should have worked out. But Sly is also a dire actor and fails miserably to inject any character and energy into the role, winning the 1996 'Razzie' for this performance. It's essentially Stallone in a plastic suit. There's none of that dry ironic humor Schwarzenegger always seems to inject into this type of action film to make two dimensional characters entertaining and you just feel it's badly cast all around. Arnie was rumored to have been offered the role and that film would have been so much more fun. I think you can think of some catchy one-liners already. If Arnie can make an android with no human emotions come to life then he would have rocked as Dredd. Stallone, on the other hand, can do nothing with it, which means the film quickly falls flat on its face - say, like the sound of Sly actually falling flat on his face. And let's face it; he has a face that looks like its hit the ground hard over the years.

Visually its fine and the special effects (considering this was made in the mid nineties) are not too bad. In fact you can see where later movies have borrowed heavily from it, Spielberg's 'A.I' and 'Minority Report' particularly guilty. There's also the feel of Luc Bessants 'Fifth Element' here. The producers definitely cut corners and borrowed and adapted some of those suits from Star Wars and dusted down 'Robocop'.

Casting wise it's a disaster and that distinct lack of comic turn throughout is the real killer here. As I said, when Sly says, 'stick around', it just doesn't work. The Running Man is testament to how Arnie can make sci-fi work.

-Trivia-

The Manic Street Preachers were contracted to do the theme song here but it was also the time when one of their founder members disappeared without trace, believed to be a suicide, and so the band pulled out. The song, 'Judge Yr'self', was released at a later date.

-The plot-

Its 2039 and yet another comic book dystopian future-'the Cursed Earth'-the remaining human population crammed into mega cities, now over populated and so very violent. Because normal law can't deal with that rage, 'Judges' are sent out to handle crime on the spot. Judge Dredd (Stallone) is the most feared and loyal law enforcement of all in this particular Mega City (supposedly the remnants of New York), unrivalled as judge and jury and somewhat severe with his methods and sentencing, frequently adding executioner to his job description. We could do with a Dredd in South London right now!

After yet another slum shootout in the so called 'block wars', the body count is again rising with Dredds reputation. The city council, although they don't tell him, aren't happy with his somewhat reckless approach and so reassign him to the academy to teach the next generation of street enforcers his unique idea of street justice, and so less civilians end up in a box.
Meanwhile there is mutiny afoot in the highest echelons of the government, Dredd soon stitched up by High Justice Griffin (Jürgen Prochnow) for the murder of two of the most prominent law lords, getting super cop out of the way so the over-throw can take place, Dredd soon transported to a prison planet to live the rest of his years. But Dredd is sworn to protect the law and soon going head-to-head with the leader of the bad guys, Judge Rico (Armand Assante), now on the wrong side of the law. But no prison camp or city walls can hold Dredd and he will do anything to get this reputation and the respect of his fellow officers back. When his most ardent supporter, Chief Justice Fargo (Max Von Sydow) is killed, it gets personal.


-The cast-

Sylvester Stallone ... Judge Joseph Dredd

Diane Lane ... Judge Hershey

Armand Assante ... Rico

Rob Schneider ... Herman Ferguson (Fergie)

Jürgen Prochnow ... Judge Griffin

Max von Sydow ... Chief Justice Fargo

Joanna Miles ... Judge Evelyn McGruder

Joan Chen ... Ilsa

-Conclusion-

Dredds 4.8 rating in the Imdb.com is a slow as it goes for a big budget movie (worse than Pearl Harbor!) and you suspect most of that vitriol rating came from expectant comic book fans that saw their favorite hero wrecked on screen. Clearly Sly was the wrong choice and the extremely irritating Roy Schneider (in every film he does) as the comic relief enraged them some more one suspects. Schneider's performance was the worst second banana turn since all three Rush Hour movies and Chris Tucker. In fact it was worse that Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon! Diane Lane as Dredds love interest was another bad call and reminded me of the chemistry between Steven Seagal and his leading ladies. There was more wood on this set than in Ikea Knightly`s pencil case!

Here we also get the first real signs of movies having scenes in them that are specifically there to be part of the accompanying video game, mainly because they are made from the same digital effects technique .In fact the main sequence of the sky taxi is getting very tedious now and its being aped in many Sci-Fi movies. You can reel off the huge names that have been in that sequence.
The look aside this is really rather dull and an expensive flop in every way and a lesson learnt that if you don't get the right lead actors any film can fall flat on his face, hence no Judge Dredd 2.

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RuN-TiME 96 minutes
Imdb.com scores it 4.8 out of 10 from (23,678 votes)
Suitable for comic book fans only
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Summary: When superheros go wrong..