Review of Judge Dredd (1995) by Todd L — 05 Jun 2009

Oh how the initiated rejoiced when it was announced that Britain's premier comic book character Judge Dredd was receiving the big budget Hollywood movie treatment in the early 90's.

At last, we would see on screen what we'd only read about in The Galaxy's Greatest Comic, 2000ad and imagined in our fevered adolesent minds.

This film would put Dredd on the world stage and claim back some of the thunder stolen by that impersonator Robocop and reveal to those American spandex clad wannabes how you really write a comic book character.

Sadly, movie history will record no such claims.

There are some things this movie gets right. Principally the impressive costumes, production values and a decent score. But there's a lot it gets wrong. Much of the humour is laboured and the satirical edge that punctuates the comic is almost entirely absent-replaced by some of the creakiest one liners commited to film-"I Knew You'd Say That", being the most obvious. What was wrong with keeping the future speak and Dirty Harryisms of the source?

Also the character of Fergee serves to damage and undermine the movie even further. Ok the character was pretty dumb in the original comic(Ref:The Day The Law Died, Judge Dredd-The Complete Case Files) but he was never quite this annoying. His main purpose in the film appears to be to ridicule Dredd and question his methods of justice, as fans will tell this would of resulted in a face full of Lawgiver in the comic book.

This is were the film really falls short. The character of Dredd(at least in his early days)is so single minded in his belief system and in his dedication to "The Law" that he follows it without question. Where as the movie version is given so many neurosis and doubts, you half expect Woody Allen to appear or Dr Ruth to pop up and ask him about his sexual problems.

The movie makers seem to be unclear whether we should really be rooting for this fascist anti-hero or actively criticising his Judge, Jury And Executioner stance. But again, you never saw Harry Callahan in therapy-he just got on with cracking lawbreakers heads together.

Once all the hard edge and social commentary of the comic has been mercilessly chipped away, the audience is left with a fairly generic action flick, with some impressive special effects and an impressive cast list, that includes the great Max Von Sydow, Jurgen Prochnow and Diane Lane. Stallone make a fairly good attempt at the role, but is hammpered by a below par script and weak characterisation. Armand Assante's scene chewing is the right side of megalomanical and is one of the few characters to strike the right note.

But look on the bright side, it's not as bad as Batman Forever and hopefully the new Dredd movie that was recently announced as being in the pipeline will redress the balance and present a Dredd film the fans can be proud of.