Judge Dredd (1995)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1995
	Director: Danny Cannon (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer)
	Actors: Sylvester Stallone (John Rambo, The Expendables 1-2), Armand Assante, Rob Schneider, Jürgen Prochnow (Das Boot), Max von Sydow (The Seventh Seal, Conan the Barbarian), Dane Lane (Man of Steel)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 25.08.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic future, people are squeezed in huge cities like Mega-City One, protected from the Cursed Earth outside. Dredd (Stallone) is one of the Judges (also jury and executioner) trying to keep order. But he will be set up and will need to uncover the truth.
Review: Inspired by a successful comic book, this movie was a failure in 1995, but I wanted to see it for comparison with the recent remake Dredd (2012) starring Karl Urban. The movie started to benefit from the recent developments in CGIs so it doesn't look as cheap as if it would have been done in the 80s. Some props look a bit like plastic (the motorbikes, the armors) but some other effects are pretty well done (the city landscapes, the war robot, the Mean Machine). The movie is clearly centered on Stallone and I didn't like the fact that we often see his face unlike in the remake (he never leaves his helmet then) and in the comic book (I think). However this comment is modereted by the acting of Stallone, more subtle than usual, and some blue and black contact lenses that give him a disturbing look. The story is rather classical but that would be OK if there were not some shortcuts in the screenplay and some incredible rections by some characters, which are for me the main defects in this movie. The music by Alan Silvestri (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) is advertised on the Blu-ray cover but is not always fitting the story. In the same register, I found that the sound mixing on this Blu-ray edition was uneven, sometimes too weak or too loud, drowning the dialogs, or with too many effects on the rear speakers. Interesting to watch anyway.
Rating: 5 /10