Judge Dredd 1995 Film Review

Comic book fans as you'll all have no doubt have noticed i've taken it upon myself to watch old comic book movies and I do this because let's be real no one is talking about them and I want to keep their memories alive and well no matter the quality of the film itself. The same thing is also true for this film no one is talking about it anymore because there all focused on the next big movie and so to get the ball rolling again here is my review of the 1995 Judge Dredd movie.

The plot of the movie is Judge Dredd is found guilty of a crime that he didn't commit and must work out who framed him and put a stop to there evil crimes once and for all. The plot is the bog standerd hollywood affair with nothing new added to make it feel fresh which is a shame because this character really does deserve a great and fresh plot and so it's a shame to see something so standerd attached to this character.

Starring in the movie is Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd , Armand Assante as Rico Dredd , Rob Schneider as Herman "Fergie" Fergusson , MARTHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as Judge Barbara Hershey , Jürgen Prochnow as Judge Griffin , Max von Sydow as Chief Justice Fargo , Joanna Miles as Judge McGruder , Joan Chen as Dr. Ilsa Hayden and Balthazar Getty as Cadet Nathan Olmeyer.

Oh boy how do I describe the acting in this film it is both wonderfully and terribly over the top all of the actors give an over the top performance which both make the film entertaining to watch and at the same time make it hard to take seriously. I honestly wish that the actors would have played their roles more seriously since this is a movie that really does require a serious performance but at the same time we'd loose some of the entertainment value if they did.

Now like any good reviewer I did some research about this film and I found that technically this is a Disneyt film. Since Buena Vista Pictures which is owned by Disney released this film in both America and Argentina so by default that makes Judge Dredd a Disney film since alot of people in America would have grown up seeing the Buena Vista logo which is just the Disney logo appear at the start of the film, and on the VHS release of the film and to proof that i'm not lying the above picture is from a screenshot that I took of the films Wikipedia page.

Sometime after the film came out co-creator John Wagner "the story had nothing to do with Judge Dredd, and Judge Dredd wasn't really Judge Dredd even though Stallone was perfect for the part."so even the co-creator of the film doesn't like the film. So yeah when the co-creator of the thing you adapting doesn't like the film then your clearly doing something wrong I honestly feel that if the script was better then the film overall would be better.

One of the biggest issues that I among with many others had with the film is that Dredd a character known for not showing his face keeps his helmet of for a vast majority of the film. I get that Sylvester Stallone was a big star back in those days and you want to make sure the audience know that he's in the film but by removing the helmet your going against the character Dredd is a character who is basically a work addict and will always keep his helmet (I think he even showers in it) and so by removing that it doesn't work for the character.

One of the things that the film did get praise for was it's visuals and it's not hard to see why since the visuals are one of the best things about the film. The film really does look like it's set in the future if that makes any kind of sense and given that this film was made in the early nineties makes that achievement even more impressive since alot of nineties films don't really hold up well in terms of the visuals.

What makes the no helmet thing even worse is the fact that in the opening of the movie they show alot of Dredd comics all of which feature him in his helmet. So again I have to question why the film makers chose to have the character go without his helmet when your showing comic books of the same character with his helmet since it then makes the change even more jarring and just freaking strange.

Now apparently Stallone thought that this was an action comedy and demanded rewrites to fit that genre and it really does show. Since the Rob Schneider character is only there to tell jokes and there not even good jokes there the type of jokes that a drunk uncle would say or the type of jokes that your dad would say there that unfunny so the film does fail at being comedy since the main point of a comedy is to tell good jokes.

Another of the things that the film got alot of praise for was it's action and it's not hard to see why since the action scenes are indeed very exciting. Which is to be expected since Stallone was at the time one of the biggest action stars in the world and he really does do well in those scenes and it's helps that all of the action scenes are indeed very creative and entertaining which is what an action scene should be as well as being cool to look at.

Overall this is Judge Dredd in name only it has next to nothing to do with the characters it has all of the iconography in place but that's really it. It's a shame that it would take us until 2012 to get a Judge Dredd movie that's actually closer in line to the actual character and not one that acts so far out of character that it might as well be a whole new character but at the same time I was entertained by the film and that's what a film should also do and so it's gets a 5 out of 10 from me.