Judge Dredd (1995) – Directed by Danny Cannon – Starring Sylvester Stallone, Armand Assante, Diane Lane, Rob Schneider, Joan Chen, Jürgen Prochnow, and Max von Sydow.
There are some movies that just aren’t worth talking much about, and JUDGE DREDD is one of them.
Whatever it was that was paid for the rights to translate Judge Dredd into a motion picture, all the producers really bought was the costumes. If you’ve been reading the Anxiety for long, you know that I don’t really care about the loyalty of a film to its origins. I have access to the original material, so I can read that whenever I want. If they keep everything or nothing from the original property, ultimately that doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the movie.
All I want is a good movie, and JUDGE DREDD ain’t a good movie.
Fans of the comics complained when the film came out because Dredd takes off his mask, but if Stallone had kept the mask on for the entire film, it wouldn’t make JUDGE DREDD a good movie. Sometimes, as science fiction fans, we can get caught up in the changes from the source material and we can let that interfere with our ability to properly judge a film.
That’s not the case with JUDGE DREDD.
I have to wonder why they bought such a property if they weren’t interested in staying somewhat true to the roots, except that it was the ’90s, Stallone was still a bankable star, and they just needed a new idea and set of costumes to drop him in.
Watching JUDGE DREDD is like watching a studio executive check off a list of required elements. Why else is Rob Schneider here except someone thought this story needed some humor because audiences like humor? Why else-?
Ah, f*ck it. It’s a dumb movie that looks great. And, yeah, it’s got Diane Lane. But I still don’t want to watch it.
Or talk about it.
