Judge Dredd
Year: | 1996 |
Production Co: | Cinergi |
Director: | Danny Cannon |
Writer: | Michael de Luca/Steven E de Souza |
Cast: | Sylvester Stallone, Diane Lane, Rob Schneider, Armand Assante, Max von Sydow, Jurgen Prochnow, Ewen Bremner |
It had all the elements in the right place that would suit the current craze; the back story, the sidekick (an early Rob Schneider), the crisis of faith and the cementing of the legend.
Of course, it was on the tail end of Sylvester Stallone's legitimacy as an action hero, so it was an overstuffed, flabby, unfunny faux-comedy with Sly playing the same can-do-no-wrong hero he did in every movie by that stage.
He plays the titular assassin based on the comic where ridiculously-dressed roving commandos were judge, jury and executioner in futuristic, plague-ravaged megalopolises. The plot deals with him rooting out the evil in the form of his evil brother (this time, it's personal), a seemingly uneven match for Sylvester Stallone in Armand Assante.
There were some good action sequences - the chase aboard the breaking down, flying bike and the Frankestein's monster of the villain in the form of a robot apparently made out of scrap metal were both cool, but it was too full of Stallone and the persona he thought moviegoers loved but by then they were just getting bored with.