JUDGE DREDD: I Am the Law

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.

FLASH GORDON: Quarterback, New York Jets

Flash Gordon (1980) – Directed by Mike Hodges – Starring Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Chaim Topol, Brian Blessed, Timothy Dalton, Ornella Muti, and Max Von Sydow.

After a long, absurd day there are few options better to toss into your Blu-ray player than Mike Hodges’ FLASH GORDON.

I say this because after having not watched this movie since I was a kid, I watched it the other night after a completely absurd first day on the new job and loved every moment of it. GORDON is exactly what people mean when they say things like, “live action cartoon.” It’s a bright, exaggerated, campy romp, full of outrageous characters and fantastic sets. Yes, many of the characters and the actors who play them are not close to being “good,” but it somehow all works together well enough to create a completely satisfying movie.

There are few positives that can be said for Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) and Dale Arden (Melody Anderson), two flat, ridiculous characters who are nonetheless so open and honest with one another, and have been placed in such an absurd situation, that they manage to not only not sink the picture, but in a strange way enhance it by being so obvious.

They meet on a small plane somewhere in the Green Mountains as they’re both headed back to New York to get back to their crazy lives. Flash is the quarterback for the New York Jets, which tells us that a. he’s not awesome, and b. he never wins anything important. (I imagine that what we’re really watching here is evidence that someone in production still has a man-crush on Joe Namath – who only had 3 winning seasons his entire career – or that they really wanted to call this movie, RICHARD TODD: DEFENDER OF THE UNIVERSE but then realized that sending Movie Richard Todd to another universe wouldn’t prevent Real Richard Todd from ever playing for the Jets again.) Flash is the kind of guy that seems very humble and “aw, shucks, you sure are a pretty lady, miss,” but yet wears a t-shirt that says FLASH on it just to make sure everyone knows who he is.

I mean, he goes to the Green Mountains to get away from the hustle-and-bustle of his life in NYC, yet still wears a t-shirt with his name on it. The pilots of the plane know who he is, because they act like two schoolgirls at a Justin Beiber concert when he’s around, so he’s clearly famous (I’m guessing the Joe Namath conception of the character is more likely than the Richard Todd conception) and yet he still wants to make sure everyone knows who he is. On the plane, he chats up Dale by telling her that he asked at the hotel who she was, but that he didn’t come talk to her, which tells us that he wants everyone to know who he is, but he’s not going to use it to pick up a lady.

In what seems a very anachronistic conception of the love interest, Dale is all googly eyes at Flash, too, even though she’s really nervous about being on a plane in the middle of a storm. What she clearly isn’t is Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane, but she does prove capable of taking care of herself over the course of the film despite a silly start.

I can’t say I honestly ever like Flash or Dale, though. Well-meaning as they may be, and as perfect for each other as they clearly are, they’re also the least interesting characters in the movie.

While Flash and Dale are in the plane, Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) is causing havoc on Earth, forcing the plane to crash into Doctor Hans Zarkov’s (Chaim Topol) lab. Zarkov is the only scientist in the world who’s been preparing for an attack like this, and even though the rest of the world thinks he’s nuts, Zarkov is more than willing to prove them wrong by forcing Dale at gunpoint into helping him fly his experimental rocket to go to space and stop the invasion. It seems like a rather poor design for a rocket to need a second person to, literally, keep their foot on the pedal, and it seems even sillier that Zarkov wants Dale instead of Flash because she weighs less (the 100 pounds apparently making a huge difference, despite the fact that Zarkov’s intended co-pilot, his chubby assistant, is clearly closer to Flash’s weight than Dale’s).

Anyways, they go to space and get captured by Mongo’s forces and are brought before Ming the Merciless. Von Sydow hits the perfect notes for a villain here – he’s a ruthless, megalomaniacal bad-ass who’s willing to have his daughter Aura (Ornella Muti) tortured to get to the truth. Flash isn’t having any of this evil overlord destroying the Earth business, so he fights everyone with a new fighting technique called, “Football.” The fight scene at the palace is a good example of what GORDON is attempting to do: it gives you a serious plot (the fate of Earth hangs in the balance), well-meaning humans (Flash, Dale, Zarkov), flashy natives (Barin, Vultan, Klytus, the whole host of palace attendees), and a campy fight to solve the problem. What makes the scene work isn’t Flash’s fighting skills as much as it is the sheer energy and ridiculousness of it all, with a big helping hand from Vultan (Brian Blessed), who continually helps Flash when he thinks he can get away with it.

Flash ultimately gets captured and put to death (and I love how his tombstone has the Flash Gordon logo on it – Ming knows marketing), although he survives thanks to efforts of Aura, who wants Flash for her new sexual plaything. Flash is kinda lukewarm on the idea, more concerned about Dale’s whereabouts than running off for some hot sex with an alien princess (okay, maybe he’s not Joe Namath), but he’s still willing to make out a little with Aura while he’s putting on a strange helmet to telepathically communicate with Dale, who’s now a member of Ming’s harem.

Aura takes Flash to meet her main lover, Prince Barin of Arboria (Timothy Dalton). In honor of being from Arboria, everyone agrees to dress like Robin Hood. Barin is jealous and has Flash locked up, where Flash encourages a Hawkman to not drown, but is then tricked into escaping by Barin’s associate Fico (Richard O’Brien). Barin and Flash then play “stick your hand in this massive tree stump and try not to get stung by a poisonous scorpion thing.” Flash pretends to get bitten and then attacks Barin, proving Earth people are awesome at lying and being sneaky. Flash runs off, Barin chases him, and then they get captured by the Hawkmen and brought back to Sky City, where the Hawkmen make great sport out of Barin and Flash fighting each other to the death.

It’s a really big dick move, of course, but we get to see Brian Blessed teach the world how to overact and still be perfectly in character. Ming’s forces arrive and the Hawkmen flee after Flash and Barin kill General Klytus. Barin, Dale, and Zarkov are taken prisoner but Flash is left to die/conveniently escape on Sky City. Flash makes contact with Vultan through his sky cycle and Vultan is ashamed at his actions and agrees to team up with Flash to take down Ming.

Lots of fighting ensues but none of it is as memorable as hearing Vultan yell things like, “Squadron 40, DIIIIIIIIIIIVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!” I think he shouts, “Dive!” 18 times and each of them are completely awesome. Again, there’s a real talent to using one’s desire to overact to infuse the character with a real personality and no one does that better than Brian “Diiiiiivvvvvvveeeeeee!” Blessed.

We get a happy ending – Ming is defeated, Barin and Aura are lovey dovey, Barin is named the new ruler of Mongo, Vultan is named General of the army, Flash and Dale are lovey dovey, and Zarkov is content in the knowledge that he was the only person on Earth who was right. Everything is left in place for a sequel, but we never get to see it.

Beyond Flash and Dale, the film is as perfectly cast as you could hope for, and the total commitment of the film to this vision, and of Topol, Dalton, Blessed, and von Sydow to their roles, makes you believe in this world, even if it’s a completely absurdist one.

I think what makes GORDON work more than anything else is the ability of the filmmakers to perfectly balance their film: Vultan is completely over the top, but is balanced by the seriousness of Barin. Flash’s do-gooder-ness is balanced by Ming’s mercilessness. Dale’s motivated by the long-term commitment of love and Aura by the short-term thrill of lust. Even the seriousness of the plot (the destruction of Earth) is balanced by the bright campiness of Mongo. Underscoring all of this is the music of Queen, the perfect band for this film given its powerful combination of bluster and cheekiness.

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Mark Bousquet is the author of several novels, including Gunfighter Gothic, Stuffed Animals for Hire, Dreamer’s Syndrome, Harpsichord and the Wormhole Witches, and Adventures of the Five. He has also published a review collection entitle Marvel Comics on Film, which covers every cinematic and TV movie based on a superhero from the House of Ideas. A complete listing of all his work can be found at his Amazon author page.

NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN: Blofeld Wears a Bow-Tie. Bow-Ties are Not Cool

Never Say Never Again (1983) – Directed by Irvin Kirschner – A Non-EON James Bond Film – Starring Sean Connery, Kim Basinger, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Barbara Carrera, Max von Sydow, Bernie Casey, and Rowan Atkinson.

Even though it was made outside of EON Productions, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN has more in common with the Bond films post-Roger Moore than OCTOPUSSY, which was released the same year. Like CASINO ROYALE, NEVER is a serious, personal film, and like GOLDENEYE, Bond is faced with an M that thinks he’s a relic of the past.

I give NEVER credit for fully taking on the idea that James Bond is getting old. They don’t pretend that Connery can still do everything now that he could do two decades earlier and the film is built on this idea that Bond has outlived his youth. He’s called on the carpet for his lifestyle, he’s forced to start taking better care of himself, he’s spent the majority of his time teaching instead of being in the field, and the world is ready to move on without him. The problem is that whatever they thought in 1983, in 2011 we kinda see the point of the bookish M’s complaint. There is value in working out and eating right and if Bond really hasn’t do any of that over the years, then he should darn well start sooner rather than later.

Until he saves it. Again.

But then something surprising happens – this Bond is perfectly fine with the idea of retiring. He’s had his one last go-round and is content to settle down with Domino (Kim Bassigner) for the remainder of his days. It’s really nice to see such a definitive character arc, but unfortunately NEVER is such a dull, dreary, washed-out film that when Bond tells Rowan Atkinson that he’s really going to stay retired, my reaction was, “Thank God.”

Connery is very good in NEVER as an old letch struggling to stay cool and relevant, and there’s something charmingly pathetic about his attempts to bed every woman he comes across. He’s like your creepy uncle hitting on your high school girlfriend.

NEVER goes on forever. It feels impossibly long and is cut together at a snail’s pace. Fight sequences generally take too long; when Bond fights an assassin at the Old Folk’s Home (okay, technically it’s a health clinic), the fight keeps going and going and going and going … and it’s a BAD FIGHT. It’s one of those Bond vs. Jaws fights where the bad guy is so much stronger than Bond that you’ve got to sit through Bond throwing ineffective punches for five minutes.

There’s a nice little triangle between Bond, Domino, and bad guy Largo, but Domino is so dumb and so uninvolved in what’s happening to her that I don’t care about her fate.

Largo is an interesting villain – he’s nerdy but he’s also got some charisma and real malevolence to him. He’s part of SPECTRE, so we also get our 4th different on-screen Blofeld and because it’s played by Max von Sydow I was thinking we’d get another bad-ass, maybe even someone to stand alongside Telly Savalas in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. But we don’t. Instead, von Sydow plays him as something closer to a pencil pusher than heavy and as a result, he’s all kinds of useless.

What really damns NEVER is that it’s one of the most poorly paced action or espionage films that I’ve watched. Nothing memorable happens in the entire film. Nothing. Well, sure, Bond plays a video game but nothing else. Let’s get to the video game. Taking the place of a card game, Bond and Largo play a video game that Largo devised that involves, um, shooting and stuff. It’s so stupid that it almost trumps the ridiculously dumb bike chase scene that once again sees Bond in a safety helmet. He’s James Bond! He doesn’t need a helmet!

I give NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN credit for trying to be a serious spy film, but it just doesn’t execute effectively. When Q shows up, he tells Bond, “I hope we’re gonna see some gratuitous sex and violence,” but I was more interested in the film showing it had a pulse.