JUDGE DREDD

It was a fun film. Never read the comics.

This is clearly the superior Dredd! I am the law!

Nonstop action: CheckRidiculous one liners: Double checkGloriously hideous 90's CGI: Triple CheckCartoonishly bad acting and posturing: Quadruple CheckBig budget, spare no expense, go for it all special effects: Oh yesViolence: Mostly so ridiculously cartoonish that it doesn't register, except for a couple things that were too much.Sex: None, although there is clearly some deliberate pandering and showing off of the female form and some unnecessary cleavage in a couple places.Misogyny: yikes, yeah, to include see above. Exploitation of women's bodies takes off a star, plus pathetic attempts at a strong female lead that just reinforces bad gender stereotypes.Toxic Masculinity: loaded like a freight train, could not be more attempted macho, which in turn unintentionally parodies itself, which is a great laugh for hopefully enlightened men and a terrific potential teaching opportunity about good and bad masculinity, because it is so over the top that it is seriously embarassing. like, I can't even . . . wow, too much, makes so many points beautifully that it could actually be a terrific guide for how not to be a man or talk or walk or do pretty much anything. Sometimes seeing a man who is so ego ridden and trying so hard to be macho that he makes himself a pathetic embarrassing joke is a good inverse lesson to show younger men how to be real men - that is gentle, loving, patient, kind, and humble.Religion: there's a really awful, forced, weird part about cannibal outlanders who are super religious. This is another one of the warts. It is unnecessary and ugly. The violence is like a cartoon, but the horrible attempt at imitating a cult-like group of inbred white trash can be cured with the mute button for a couple of minutes.Profanity: I don't recall much until the end there was some, thankfully. It's pretty free of swears for an R rated film. I think it's because they were going for a kid audience despite the R rating, ala T2. In fact, this whole thing feels like Stallone's best attempt to out-do his rival Arnie, resulting in a spectacular belly flop of unintentional humor.Music: tries to be epic and soaring, sounds like Star War meets the elevator and goes down two floors.Comedy: when intentional, badly fails, incredibly annoying, but then becomes funny because it is trying so hard to be funny but isn't. The rest of the time, warts aside, an absolute riot of gut splitting ridiculousness that trips over itself and thinks nobody can see it if it covers its eyes.So yeah, it's a thing for sure. It's a great big loud, expensive, terrible, but inadvertently redemptive thing.

thanks

Science fiction is such a wonderful medium in that it affords the creative community to test our concepts that would be impossible to explore in real life.Judge Dredd is precisely that. A future post-apocalypic Earth (The Cursed Earth) where humanity lives in megacities and where society in order to keep order has established a Police Force with a Judges Power (Police, Judge, Jury, Executioner rolled up into one person - The Judge). These Judges have the power to chase criminals and dispense "Justice" on the spot. A Judge witnesses you jaywalking and he can, on the spot, Judge you guilty and impose a fine. In our society, such a concept is ridiculous and would never work but...suspend disbelief and take a look at what qualities a Judge would have to possess from an Ethics and Justice Perspective. Sometimes these concepts start out in Comics and Judge Dredd is no exception -- Judge Dredd is an award winning and very long running Britsh Comic. I've never read it though fyi.The Movie is about one Judge -- the baddest and most feared/respected of them all (Judge Joseph Dredd). The movie adaptation follows the formula for many action movies of this time. Rob Schneider plays comic relif (small time thief who happens to be in the wrong time) throughout the movie. Diane Lane is the young new Judgette (sp?) and love interest of Stallone (no romance in the movie though just a bit of URST). Diane is as always lovely and such a wonderful acress. Stallone plays the cold idealistic Ethical Super Judge Dredd. Armand Assante plays a wonderful villain with a very cool bad Robot bodyguard. Max von Sydow and Jürgen Prochnow also play some wonderful supporting characters who deliver some wonderful performances. The acting is first rate and I can say that only Stallone could have played this role -- almost as if it was written for him.I won't give away much of the plot - suffice it to say that Judge Dredd is accused of a crime he didn't commit, gets shipped off to jail and the bad guys almost take over. As Stallone, Schneider, Lane, and Max von Sydow work to fix things and come back from the edge of oblivion there's plenty of action, humor, big guns, big guns, shooting, big guns etc. Stallone saves the day and kisses the girl.Genre: SciFiType: ActionCategory: A (this is not a B movie)Budget: Summer Blockbuster ($90million)Actors: First RateActing: Very GoodSpecial Effects: First Rate (for the time -- still good today)How'd it do: Half Belly Flop ($100million worldwide)This was a big budget film which received poor reviews. It was very formulaic and probably the critics were tired of the same formula being used....Big Tough Hero + Comic Relief Funnyman + Gorgeous Girl + Super Bad Guy + Super Tough Odds + Science Fiction Setting = Super Summer Bockbuster.In fairness, the movie is a bit dated but if you enjoy this genre and want a fun movie to watch on a Sunday Afternoon in the SciFi action category - this is a good candidate. Its not a thinking person's movie (unless your roomate happens to be a philosophy PHD candidate in which case you'll go down having the classic Socrates and Thrasymacus debate for the rest of the afternoon). More of a hang your brain at the door and have some fun kindof movie. The underlying concept though is extremely intelligent. I really enjoyed this movie but definitely its an acquired taste - I hope the review helps make a decision.

Just watch it, period.

Check out Give Me Back My Action Movies podcast to find out how the guys reviewed this movie!

Good for a comic book movie

Heresy, obviously. But Danny Cannon's much maligned film has a lot of the spirit of the early comics. The whole thing is a terrible mess but has the spirit of those 70s films that the comic was ripping off in the first place. Stallone - who is perfect physically as Dredd - is clunking and bovine in an enjoyable way. There's a Joan Chen/ Diane Lane cat scrap: there's the long walk, the cursed earth, a brace of Chief Judges and an ABC Warrior!As Stallone says: "What I learned out of that experience was that we shouldn't have tried to make it Hamlet; it's more Hamlet and Eggs." I have no idea what he means by that. But its about right.

No menus or extras; it's straight in to the studio titles and movie in the default language of Spanish, which you can change to English surround in the usual way. I'm very happy with the image quality - substantially better than DVD. I was initially concerned about the shake in the pre-movie studio gubbins, but that went away. Glad I bought it. As for the movie itself, I like it. Some don't, and I'm guessing they're more wedded to the specifics of storylines and character specifics than me. The overall manner and art style is entertaining and true enough to the source for me.

Please do not think of this film as anything to do with the terrific 2000AD series. The only thing they share is the name judge dredd. I have never in my life seen or heard of the character using tongue in cheek humour or sharing any story with someone so inept as Rob Schneider. If you can ignore the past 30+ years of 2000AD, then this is for you with all the action and fighting. If you are a die hard fan of 2000AD then please stay away and watch the infinitely better Dredd 3D with Karl Urban. All in all this deserves a 2.5 but amazon will only let me give whole numbers.

As a long time fan of 2000AD and Judge Dredd when this came out I was very snobby about it after hearing that Dredd removes his mask (which the more recent Dredd didnt do). In retrospect it did some stuff very well - the futuristic element was there and there are plenty of 2000AD tropes hidden away, the most obvious being the ABC Warrior and the Angel gang. The humour element has also grown on me.

I don't useraly rate a dvd, a dvd is a dvd, but on this occation, ita french and from france, french all over the cover, french menu, but a very esey clear english version of the film, easey too find and turn the subs off, the film is as if it was a english version, i had my own worrys when it first arived in a french cover, but in secounds i was watching and enjoying a great film, in english. A happy buyer.