I am the Law: How Judge Dredd Predicted Our Future

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Citizen Ma-Ma. Your crimes are multiple homicides, and the illegal manufacture and distribution of narcotics. How do you plead? [he forces Ma-Ma to inhale Slo-Mo, and she says nothing] Defense noted. [throws her out the window to her death] However, for all that Judge Dredd looks like the comic, the story is a disaster. While the characters are nominally from the comics, they bear only a passing resemblance to them. The three writers of Judge Dredd took the basic setting for Dredd and slapped a bog-standard action-movie plot on top of it. The whole point of this particular future is that judgment is faceless and emotionless. That’s why we never see the judges’ faces. They’re the embodiment of the law. Having Dredd take off his helmet, and keep it off for 85% of the movie is just a disaster. And yes, it’s a movie, and yes, Stallone’s face is famous, but he was doing just fine at the beginning of the movie. If you take these two movies and average them out, you get the prefect Judge Dredd movie. Each has significant flaws, and each has elements that are perfect. Unfortunately, the film was beset with difficulties, mostly the tension between Stallone and director Danny Cannon, as the former saw it as an action-comedy, while the latter viewed it as a dark satire. The film found no audience in the U.S., though it did decently overseas, not aided by the storyline breaking one of the cardinal rules of the comic strip, which is that Dredd’s face is never seen.

Dredd and Anderson go on the run, with Kay in tow, taking care of all the thugs who try to stop them. TJ refuses to let them into the medical center. Dredd accuses him of taking sides; TJ says there are no sides, that Dredd’s already dead. Maybe some day we’ll get the perfect Judge Dredd movie that combines the production values of Judge Dredd with the script sensibilities of Dredd. These two movies’ failures don’t bode well, but then the comic book character’s still going strong after four decades, so who knows what’ll happen in another decade or two?

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There’s a lot of talent in this movie, and I like that they cast both Max von Sydow and Jurgen Prochnow as supervising judges, so we didn’t know which one of them was the bad guy at first. (But it had to be one of them. I mean, it’s Max von Sydow and Jurgen Prochnow, for crying out loud, neither of these two is likely to play a good guy, and certainly both of them aren’t gonna.) Joan Chen is wasted as a scientist who works with the bad guys, who’s mostly there to give Hershey someone to fight in the climax while Dredd is facing off against Rico. Speaking of Rico, Armand Assante is also wasted in a role that literally anyone who was good at overacting could play.

Both Rico and Dredd were clones, created from genetic material from the finest of the judges’ council. The project, codenamed Janus, was abandoned and sealed after Rico went binky-bonkers. Now, though, Griffin wants to revive Janus so he can have perfect judges. He freed Rico from his secret imprisonment, had him impersonate Dredd to kill Hammond (Rico and Dredd have the same DNA), and for shits and giggles, he also got his hands on an old robot enforcer. Fuppie: [ smiling nervously] Uh, this is getting boring, hey... So, uh, what's the tab? Come on, how much is this gonna cost me? You name the price. Fuppie: [ interrupting] Hey, you'd better listen! I suggest you walk away and bother somebody else! However, the 2012 movie also failed to find an audience in theatres, though it has performed better on home video platforms, and there are rumblings of a sequel. Dredd takes down the van, which kills two of the occupants. He chases the third into a food court where he stops the third despite his having taken a hostage.

The song is about the 2000 AD character Judge Dredd and includes references to many of the character's storylines up until 1987.

At Griffin’s urging, Rico foments more chaos, which should be enough to unseal Janus and allow Griffin to tighten the reins, as it were, with his private army of clones. Rico uses his knowledge of judge procedure and his big-ass robot to kill more than a hundred judges. This massacre, and subsequent rioting, leads the council to unseal Janus so Griffin can re-create it. Anderson encounters another judge, but her psychic abilities reveal her intentions, and Anderson shoots her too. The remaining two corner Dredd, and even manage to wound him, but Dredd kills one, and Anderson kills the other before he can kill Dredd. They then proceed to the control room where the techie is willing to give up Ma-Ma’s location (the top floor) and the passcode to get into her stronghold (which Anderson reads psychically). Anderson lets him go free, to Dredd’s annoyance, as he’s guilty, but Anderson also saw in his mind how badly he’d suffered at Ma-Ma’s hands. And she figured she’s already failed her assessment once she got taken hostage, so in for a penny in for a pound. The remaining judges want Dredd to be the new chief justice, but he insists on staying a street judge. However, Hershey does kiss him. (Insert Hershey’s kiss joke here.) And then Dredd drives off on his cycle.Judge Dredd: Towing is for a first offence, this is your fourth violation, barf breath. You're a menace. How do you plead? Vartis Hammond is a reporter who is on the verge of exposing corruption among the judges. He and his boss are killed by a judge wearing Dredd’s badge and using Dredd’s gun. (Judges’ weapons have biometrics that enable them only to be used by the judge it’s issued to.) TJ, the doctor who runs the medical center in Peach Trees, explains to Dredd and Anderson that an ex-hooker named Madeline Madrigal, a.k.a. Ma-Ma, runs all the gangs in Peach Trees, having taken over the four rival gangs that had been running things in the complex. TJ tells them where one of the drug dens is, and the judges raid it. Everyone is killed except for Kay, whom Anderson is fairly certain is the one who killed the three guys. Fairly certain isn’t enough, so Dredd plans to take him in for interrogation. Rico and Dredd face off on top of the Statue of Liberty, Dredd manages to toss Rico off to his doom, saying “Court’s adjourned.” Because of course he did.