In the future, one man is the law.

Judge Dredd is a character lifted out from the adult comic 2000AD that was all the rage while I was at school. The basics behind the story are pretty much true to the comic: Nearly everyone now lives in one of earth’s ‘Megacities.’ For a time there was no rule of law and anarchy prevailed but then, out of the darkness came a new force. The Judges. The Judges were police, judge, jury and where necessary, executioner, all rolled into one. Let’s face it, these guys (and girls) were dead hard. Hardest of the bunch was the infamous Judge Dredd. The Judges were kitted out with enough weaponry to destroy a small country single-handed, which resulted in a beautifully drawn barrage of flying line art lead, missiles and huge monochrome explosions.

This all worked terribly well in the simplistic world of panel comics where your imagination is left free to fill in the blanks. Try and translate this into film and you need something with a little more depth. On this score the movie totally fails to deliver. On the plus side you have some fantastic sets (later sold to the company preparing to produce BladeRunner 2 – which of course never happened), nifty and believable special effects and an impressive array of gadgetry including some novel voice controlled handguns. The vehicles are equally fun with top prize going to the unreliable Enforcer motorbikes of the Judges. It is nice to see that even in the future you can’t always get technology to work properly. This is also a sad reflection of the rest of the script which quite clearly fails to work properly either.

Stallone (perfectly cast) plays Dredd, an emotionless street Judge. No emotion requires little in the way of acting although at times the quivering of the Dredd upper lip deserves an Oscar nomination. He works for ‘The Council’ who essentially rule the city, making up what rules and punishments they deem necessary to maintain order. Trouble is afoot within the council with a corrupt member who wishes usurp the current leadership. He enlists the help of Rico (Armand Assante), an ex-judge who is currently imprisoned in a maximum security jail (for being a crazy-ass murdering loony…always the best bet for a confederate). After an impressive jail escape Rico teams up with a rusty old robot (read Robocop crossed with a pit-bull) who serves as his bodyguard. The anamatronics of the robot are absolutely excellent and for me it is the robot who is the real star of the film. When you realise that the robot doesn’t even speak this gives you a pretty good idea of the rest of the movie. The plot is painfully predictable and the potentially exciting love interest between Dredd and a female Judge fails to even make it off the ground.

Rico double-crosses his benefactor on The Council (now you would never have guessed that, would you) and sets out to rule the city on his own. Only one man can stop him. Unfortunately Dredd has been falsely convicted for a murder he didn’t commit. Rico of course, was behind it. Dredd was convicted of the murder on indisputable DNA evidence. So how did Rico manage to frame Dredd? Explaining that would spoil part of the plot but I realised after the movie that I had seen a Simpson’s episode (The Simpson’s Halloween Special) with pretty much exactly the same idea. Come to think of it, ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ is the same thing again. Are we bored yet?

Dredd, needless to say, will save the day. He is aided and hindered by an amiable villain (Rob Schneider) whose humour and entertaining dialogue makes one of the few highlights of the film. In one redeeming sequence, Stallone and Schneider are captured by a family of cannibal pirates who live in out in ‘The Cursed Earth’. There are some particularly good makeup effects here, and the horrible cannibals are almost instantly likeable. It would have been nice to see more of them before they were predictably dispatched. Dredd and chums now have to make it back inside the unbreachable walls of Mega-City One. Dredd explains that this has never been achieved by anyone before. Consequently it is all a bit disappointing to find that this impossible feat is easy as running for the bus.

Once they are safely back inside you can rest assured that there will be explosions, there will be tons of gunfire and there will be futuristic chase sequences as Dredd struggles to defeat Rico and clear his name. Unfortunately there is nothing much else. I am a huge fan of escapist action but you need to string your action sequences together with a bit more than, well, string. Exchange your brain for some chips and beer and Dredd would be a passable evening’s entertainment. Pour in enough beer and it might even be quite good.

As a DVD Dredd is about average - you don’t get anything special in the way of added value. The video quality is perfectly acceptable and certainly does the excellent set justice. Unlike one or two other movies in this style, everything is well lit. The 5.1 surround seems a little misdirected in places and in at least one point there are sounds coming from behind you that are very definitely happening in front of you. Oops.

It’s all a bit of escapist fun but it desperately needs something more. It needs humour, romance, sex or even maybe, a story. Give me the comic anytime.