Nerds That Geek Movie Review: 'Judge Dredd'

Written by John Edward Betancourt

What's funny about bad motion pictures...especially comic book themed ones, is that they have incredible staying power. For every top notch Captain America or Batman movie that we discuss on a regular basis, there's an awful direct to video version out there or a box office bomb that well...we discuss on a regular basis.

We simply cannot get over the lost opportunity these films turned out to be. Whether it be the film's poor casting choices or the wild decisions made with the storyline, we fawn over these films with sheer wonder because they inspire our imagination to play the age old game of 'what if?' as we ponder what that particular tale could have looked like with love and care and one movie that I always return to for that exact reason is 1995's Judge Dredd. 

However my fascination with this film goes far beyond the wonder of what could have been, but also because this movie is such an intriguing conundrum. At times it is actually downright brilliant, and at other times...it's a fiesta of B Movie silliness and well, let's be honest, it's the goofy stuff that draws you in. There's a strange joy that comes with watching Sylvester Stallone slip into super ham mode and chew up the scenery with one powerhouse over the top performance and there's an equally strange satisfaction that comes with seeing the film shift gears from sci-fi epic to buddy comedy when Stallone and Rob Schneider hit the road in classic Riggs and Murtaugh fashion.

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But what draws me back to this film time and time again, are the genius moments that the film never took advantage of. Take for example, Mega City One and The Cursed Earth. The setting is damn important to a motion picture and well, the movie does get props for truly giving us the sprawling megalopolis where mankind has assembled to survive the barren harshness of The Cursed Earth, and it was wonderful to see a world this large and this epic come to life before our eyes and it would have been amazing to learn more about these two places and it's a shame that the story presents Mega City One as nothing more than a futuristic New York City, because seeing the strife in such a massive setting would have helped set the mood for one powerful story.

However, the biggest miss creatively when it comes to this film is the plot. The idea that a judge could cross the line and try to be above the law is fascinating and it's a damn shame the movie didn't explore such a notion further, and it's even worse that it tried to go hardcore sci fi and throw genetic engineering into the mix to explain the whole thing away. Had the story taken the time to look at a judge who wanted to bring down Dredd in the hopes of destroying this intricate and fragile check and balance, one critical to the stability of society, would have been wonderful to watch and it could have served as a wonderful expansion of the 'Dark Judges' storyline found in the comic books that the second film flirted with briefly. 

Either way, what makes this film truly magical in a weird sort of way is that the more that you watch it, the more you discover, either by way of new and awful moments that make you roll your eyes or something brand new that you never noticed before. Case in point, it wasn't until well after The Walking Dead came out that I discovered that Scott Wilson plays Pa Angel or that I recently found out that Adrienne Barbeau is the voice of Central. But, regardless of any wonder that we discover or uncover in this film, the fact still remains that Judge Dredd is and will remain a titanic failure when it comes to storytelling, only because this is a film that simply tried to do too much in one sitting, and trying too hard to please the fans, is just as bad as ignoring them altogether and it will continue to be dissected and analyzed because it will always serve as a blueprint...as to how to not make a comic book movie.  

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