Judge Dredd
(Region 2 DVD)
(1995)
review by Billion$Baby

Too many cooks spoil the broth or in this case, too many re-writes and uninformed input from Hollywood big-wigs destroyed what was probably a half-way faithful script in the very early stages. It's dangerous to seek out new audiences and risk alienating the core fan base that you know already existed. You run the risk of no-one liking your film at all. As far as I'm concerned this is a $90 million film best served up on Thanksgiving Day only and it's an insult to
the Judge Dredd fans.

These are the good points - The Block War and Mega-City One skyline seen in the first five minutes, the Long Walk taken by a resigning Chief Judge and the very cool looking representation of the Mean Machine Angel cyborg character encountered by Dredd in the Cursed Earth. That is it.

Bad points? First off, why bring in Versace to re-design the Judge's uniforms? There was absolutely nothing wrong with them in the first place. The shoulder pads have seemingly turned into american football shoulder pads and a codpiece was added onto this new
costume. A codpiece?! Don't try to fix what ain't broken.

Emotions. "By the time a Judge hits the streets, he is no longer human, he is a machine." But not in this film where Judges have emotions, friends and even lovers one would assume from the final kissing scenebetween Judges "Dredd" and "Hershey." This is against a very basic premise of the comic. Judges are not allowed to have emotions, desires or personal possessions. They teach, study or uphold the law. That is it. Since it's illegal for Judges to have sex, perhaps it's not wise for the film's ending to hint that Dredd and Hershey are gonna get it on at a later point?

Satire and sometimes subtle humour. What happened toit?! It's in the comic. A childish wise cracking criminal in the guise of Rob Schneider wasn't needed. At all. The extreme storylines and character behaviours in the original comic itself were funny enough already.

Never hire an actor who can't even pronounce the word "law" to portray a character whose catchphrase is "I Am The Law." It niggles. Also, where did this dodgy "I knew you were gonna say that" catchphrase come from? Further advice, keep the helmet on. As soon as Stallone removes the helmet 30 minutes or so into
the film, he is no longer Judge Dredd. He just comes over as Sylvester Stallone in yet another cheesy action flick.

A War Droid that's identical to the Hammerstein character from The ABC Warriors appears in the film. For seemingly no reason at all. It looks pretty nifty but instead of featuring a character from another 2000 AD story altogether, why not spent time and energy on something from the actual Judge Dredd stories instead? Weird.

Also, countless niggles such as "Dredd" stating that suicide isn't illegal when it has always clearly been a crime in the original tome. Petty? I think not as the film is chock-a-block full of annoying comic
book to film discrepancies like that. Lazy and irritating.

British director Danny Cannon is an absolute disgrace. He appeared in the UK's 2000AD comic book (birth and home place of Dredd) week after week telling the readers that this film would be as close to the comic book as possible, and that since he had been a hu
ge fan of this UK creation since childhood, this film's portrayal would be spot-on in it's accuracy. Cannon lied and built himself up for a very large fall.

The dvd print quality is decent enough, ditto with the 5.1 sound. I suppose. As well as trailers and filmographies, you get a 20 minute featurette seemingly designed to wind me up even further.

"Hi, I'm Sylvester Stallone. You know, I've made 33 pictures in my career and most of them...action." (Replace the word "action" for "complete rubbish" and it would be a much more apt description). We later see Stallone thumbing through a US copy of a Judge Dredd comic book:

"Now let's see, Dredd flys through the air on a motorcycle and he runs down a tube with a fifty foot fireball following him, and he fights a man who's half machine and half monster... Now you might think I was just reading a few pages from the Judge Dredd comic book but actually I'm looking over the script...."

Sylvester, I know you're not reading the comic book since the Lawmaster motorbike can't fly. It never has done and it never will. It only flies in your immensely stupid and extremely pony Hollywood adaption. Why don't you try reading the actual comic book your
self sometime? As soon as I saw the Judge Dredd "Law master motorbike" start to fly, I knew that this film of yours was gonna suck rotten eggs.

I can do without annoying featurettes like this. Ditto with the film. File alongside Howard The Duck and Batman & Robin in the absolute stinker of a comic book adaption department. No parole either. Hopefully the two new Dredd films will make this a very distant bad memory.