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Judge Dredd [1995]
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Judge Dredd is one of those movies that doesn't have a brain of its own, so it can only rip off a lot of ingredients from other, better movies. It's a mishmash of Blade Runner, Total Recall, and The Road Warrior, with a dash of Star Wars tossed in for good measure. As if that weren't enough, it's got Sylvester Stallone, who seems to be the only one in the movie who's in on the game and knows it's all a sci-fi scam. Like The Fifth Element a few years later, Judge Dredd depicts a futuristic megalopolis packed with crowded vertical overgrowth and rampant commerce, where anarchy reigns supreme. Violent "block wars" are fought by lawless citizens with machine guns, and Judge Dredd (Stallone) is one of the city's heavily armed policemen, given free rein to judge and execute the perpetrators of violence. But Dredd himself is subjected to judgement and swift justice when his own gun is identified in the murder of a prominent TV reporter, forcing him to do whatever he can to clear his name. Diane Lane plays his partner in crime-fighting and romance, and Rob Schneider provides juvenile comic relief as Dredd's streetwise sidekick. Impressive special effects are on vivid display, and the movie's fun for what it's worth. Lower your expectations and you just might enjoy it. --Jeff Shannon
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
Judge Dredd is one of those movies that doesn't have a brain of its own, so it can only rip off a lot of ingredients from other, better movies. It's a mishmash of Blade Runner, Total Recall, and The Road Warrior, with a dash of Star Wars tossed in for good measure. As if that weren't enough, it's got Sylvester Stallone, who seems to be the only one in the movie who's in on the game and knows it's all a sci-fi scam. Like The Fifth Element a few years later, Judge Dredd depicts a futuristic megalopolis packed with crowded vertical overgrowth and rampant commerce, where anarchy reigns supreme. Violent "block wars" are fought by lawless citizens with machine guns, and Judge Dredd (Stallone) is one of the city's heavily armed policemen, given free rein to judge and execute the perpetrators of violence. But Dredd himself is subjected to judgement and swift justice when his own gun is identified in the murder of a prominent TV reporter, forcing him to do whatever he can to clear his name. Diane Lane plays his partner in crime-fighting and romance, and Rob Schneider provides juvenile comic relief as Dredd's streetwise sidekick. Impressive special effects are on vivid display, and the movie's fun for what it's worth. Lower your expectations and you just might enjoy it. --Jeff Shannon
Editorial
Special Features
2.35 Wide Screen
DVD 9
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
Original Theatrical Trailer
The Making Of
Cast And Crew Biographies
Interactive Moving Menus
Editorial
Synopsis
In the third millenium, all-powerful Judges keep the peace in Earth's giant Mega-Cities. Judge Dredd is framed by corrupt power-seekers and must fight for his life and for justice. Based on the futuristic, action-packed comic books by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.
What's wrong with everybody?
Review date: 2007-10-04 Rating: 6 out of 10
I'm in a minority, I know, but I've never understood why this film was, frankly, raped upon its release and remains so to this day! I grew up reading 2000 A.D. (Delivered every Saturday to my house!) and all the elements are here. It riffs on many characters and stories from the magazine and adds a few necessary touches here and there. I was quite happy watching it back in 1995 and didn't have a problem with the variations on character or the overly comic book (read: simplistic) tone of the film. It really was how I imagined the film of Dredd to be. And considering that Danny Cannon was reading 2000 A.D. at around the same time (he sent in a picture of a Judge Dredd film!) I can fully appreciate what he's tried to do with the film. Everybody calm down. It's only a movie!
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Reviews
OOPS
Review date: 2007-09-19 Rating: 2 out of 10
Judge Dredds shoulder pads would leave the cast of Dynasty breathless.
The film is an arse quite frankly. The special effects budget should have been backed up by what they call in the film business, a STORYLINE. What weak story there is is acted woodenly. Stick with the comics !!
NOT BAD
Review date: 2007-08-23 Rating: 6 out of 10
Judge Dredd is based on one of the most popular characters from the UK's 2000 AD comics. It is set in the 22nd Century, when most of the Earth has been turned into a desolate wasteland known as the "Cursed Earth" and most humans live in highly concentrated cities, walled off from the rest of the world. Society is fairly anarchic, except there for a class of humans, known as "judges", who act as cop, judge, jury and executioner all rolled into one. Sylvester Stallone is the titular judge. He's notorious among the other judges, the general citizenry and the other judges for upholding the law in a harsh way. The film primarily tells the story arc from the comics known as "The Return of Rico", and concerns a plot to get Dredd into trouble while overthrowing what's left of the existing "order".
This is a great action/sci-fi film with a tone reminiscent of Demolition Man (1993), Total Recall (1990), The Fifth Element (1997), Blade Runner (1982) and similar films. If you like Stallone, gloomy futuristic production design and/or intense action films, Judge Dredd should be a rewarding experience for you, as long as you're not a purist who is coming to the film by way of an intricate familiarity with the 2000 AD comics.
The source material caused a slight problem for me, too, but not because I'm a purist. Rather, Judge Dredd suffers a bit from a flaw that plagues many films based on comic books--writers Michael De Luca, William Wisher Jr. and Steven E. de Souza had an extensive, pre-existent mythology (as is necessary when creating a complete, new world) on which to build their work, and they tried to incorporate a bit too much of it. Because of this, we're introduced to a large cast of characters fulfilling functions that we're not familiar with (in the details, at least), and we're regularly faced with new lingo, new cultural concepts, new technology, and so on, often with just a couple lines of dialogue. If you want to understand the details, you really have to pay close attention. But on the other hand, the general arc of the story is relatively simple, and you don't have to know every detail to enjoy it.
Given the disposition that Stallone has as Judge Dredd in the film, he may as well have walked out of Kurt Wimmer's film Equilibrium (2002). Dredd initially goes about his business almost robotically; he only cares about enforcing the law. When he's recruited by a higher-up, Chief Justice Fargo (Max von Sydow), to teach ethics (which is quite an ironic idea when you see Dredd's behavior in the opening scene), he tells the students that being a judge basically means giving up one's life to the law. He says that one cannot have friends, for example--never mind that other judges, like Judge Hershey (Diane Lane) try to have social lives outside of work. Dredd later tells Hershey that he did have a friend at one point, but he had to judge him. Sending a friend to prison or killing him (we're not told exactly how Dredd judged him, although we find out later) isn't exactly the best way to encourage a healthy social life.
So the subtext of the story, and Dredd's character arc, becomes that through a number of hardships, he finally learns something about ethics for himself--just in time to deal with a potentially shattering bit of information about his personal identity. He ends up accompanied by a man, Herman Ferguson (Rob Schneider, in a role meant primarily as comic relief, although more generously, he's an ironic emotional facilitator), whom he had just judged harshly, even though Ferguson wasn't really doing anything wrong on his first day out of prison. Together they have to go to a figurative hell (The Cursed Earth) to deal with figurative "demons" (a famed band of rogue cannibals who live in the tough environment) and back again to reach their fulfillment.
Like many recent sci-fi stories set in the future, Judge Dredd has a pessimistic view of where technology and social conventions are leading humans. As the story has it, at one point, we had built massive, relatively unstoppable robot warriors, and one of the highlights of the film is when the villain finds one and puts it back into service. It's as much fun to watch the gadgetry as it is to watch the action sequences, and the computer generated "landscapes" throughout the film are spellbinding, with their sly jabs at various changes and similarities to present locations and cultures. The whole concept of the judges and their hierarchical structure is fascinating, even if some apparent inconsistencies (such as why judges are not summarily dealt with in the same manner that other citizens are) are never explained in the film.
The performances are good, even if a few actors barely get enough screen time (like Lane and Joan Chen, who plays semi-villain Ilsa), and the premise is captivating. It's too bad this film gets unduly knocked by purists and those misguidedly looking for detail realism in the genre. Judge Dredd is severely underrated. It deserves a first look or a second chance.
One man is Judge, Jury, AND Executioner
Review date: 2007-05-13 Rating: 4 out of 10
Being a long time reader of Marvel and DC Comics, I found this movie a lifeless, shambolic attempt. To my mind, Dredd is as strong a character as Batman,Spiderman, Superman or Robocop, all of whom have had decent movies. Instead of exploring Dredd's world, its politics, and the almost fascist judges and the like, what we have here is a watered down standard action flick with some reasonable visuals. Perhaps there will be a sequel that will do the character some justice (no pun intended). If so, I hope it's a hell of a lot better than this...
No this is my worst nightmare
Review date: 2006-07-13 Rating: 4 out of 10
I'll never get this, Hollywood buys a known quantity, either it's a book or a comic, any kind of media, take those already popular characters and then rather than directly interpret those well loved characters onto the screen they change them, twist and ruin them beyond any recognition. Welcome to the world of Judge Dredd.
Judge Dredd is a British comic book character, I can almost understand the Americans twisting it into the vacuous mess it is because Judge Dredd isn't a clean cut good versus evil American comic book character. He was given birth during a time were britian always seemed to be teetering on the brink of open anarchy, everyone was on the dole or on strike, rubbish piled up on the streets and houses burned down because binmen and firemen refused to work over pay disputes, British comics reflected this sense of despair. Needless to say Stallone's slurring portrayal of Dredd has little to do with what the fans expected.
The plot of the story is far to convoluted and edges too far from the basic concept of a future cop in a city doing the things a cop does, Tie in with that a really embarrassing script, It's very Stallone, over the top and cringingly dramatic, I can't watch the first 10 minutes, it makes my teeth grind. I have to admit the script does seem to settle down after that into a thankfully average perfunctory effort.
But again the basic character of Dredd that I'm sure has been bought at some expense is completely ignored, were simply treated to Stallone doing what he's done many times before but in a really cool uniform. Actually the uniforms, sets and designs are excellent, A large part of the Dredd character is his incredible uniform which has been translated onto the screen with skill and I think some love. It's therefore a bit of a pity that as soon as Stallone can he bins the uniform and doesn't put it on again apart from a few brief glimpses.
It's not all bad though, we are treated to a grating movie buddy for Dredd in the form of Rob Schneider but Armand Assante gives a gutsy and enjoyable portrayal as Dredds clone Brother Rico, he really is the best thing in the whole movie, he really should have got a medal for trying to save it, In the end though nothing can save this truly dreadful screen adaptation of a British comic institution.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Sylvester Stallone
Rob Schneider
Diane Lane
Jürgen Prochnow
Armand Assante
Creators:
Sylvester Stallone (Primary Contributor)
Diane Lane (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: Pathe Distribution
Manufacturer: Pathe Distribution
EAN: 5060002830154
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 1999-12-06
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 92 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1995-06-30
Language: English (Original Language)