I AM DEH LURGH!
Last time around, we discussed one of the high points of Sylvester Stallone's career, at least as far as box office and pop culture goes. Now, fast forward a decade into the nineties, we had him take on the comic book trend of that time--which, er, lent itself to very mixed results. Some extremely outright goofy results, no less. And here's one of them!
Before we go on, I want to natter about the source material, which is a soft spot of mine--most countries in Europe have their own comic book traditions, be it Asterix in France, Tintin in Belgium, and in the UK's case, the cynical and dark-humored scifi anthology 2000AD. Leading this title is future lawman Judge Dredd, who dispenses justice in the American sprawl of MegaCity One usually by means of ventilating suspects with his Lawgiver pistol. Insert your own joke about not much having changed with US law enforcement. Anyway, the strip was very varied in tone, be it sprawling epic storylines like the 'Apocalypse War' or 'Judgement Day', goofy satires spoofing trends or politics of the day, or rather poignant looks on the nature of the Judges themselves like 'America'. With all this material, surely Hollywood had enough to work with for their inevitable adaptation?
Well...honestly, compared to some comic book catastrophes in the nineties, they were closer than others. They (very loosely) adapted a specific storyline, they got the general look of Mega City One right, and it's clear from the little nods peppered around that someone was readying the strip. So why do fans of it tend to treat this one like an awkward drunken uncle in an ill-fitting spandex costume?
In the opening scene, following a nice intro narrated by James Earl Jones, we get introduced to Rob Schneider--for you kids there, you just need to know that he was one of those comedians in the nineties who inexplicably got himself film roles but unlike Adam Sandler ultimately never stuck around. He soon finds himself in the midst of an urban gang war, which prompts the arrival of Dredd, played with slurring gusto by Stallone himself.
Immediately, we get all we need to know about the film ahead in about thirty seconds, starting with the camera focusing on Dredd's massive codpiece, Stallone being incomprehensible, and then declaring that he's safe from bullets because he's outside their effective range (despite said bullets being fired straight downwards). In other words--it's really goddamn stupid. Question is, are we getting Rambo 3 stupid, or Stop or My Mom Will Shoot stupid?
Thankfully, it's more the former! Stallone plays things absolutely straight even as he's activating modes of his gun with names like 'Double Whammy', and his interaction with Judge Hershey (Diana Lane) is the most comically awkward setup for the inevitable romance you can imagine. The only downside through all this is Schneider, who keeps squawking dumb one-liners enough that you yearn for Dredd to impose a 'shut the fuck up' sentence by means of explosive bullets.
Oh, and not long after, we see Dredd remove his helmet, which he never does in the comics. Fans have found this...contestable for years, and my issue is that it detracts from the hilarity of Sly overacting everything to compensate for half his face being invisible.
Soon we get introduced to the real plot, which has the Chief Justice (played by the late great Max von Sydow) undermined by one of his deputies, who conspiracies with jailbreaked genetic super-Judge Rico, played by Armand Assante. Rico is another reason the movie enters the realm of glorious stupidity as opposed to intolerable stupidity--there is not one line, not one moment, where he's not apparently on several different types of crack. Nor, despite the movie's obsession with the word, can he pronounce the word 'law'. He can say 'looor', 'laaaawh', and 'LOOOOORGH', but that one syllable? Just can't be done.
Anyway, Dredd soon gets framed under the flimsiest pretences possible (there's apparently DNA tracking on his gun's bullets, but nobody points out that it could be planted or faked) and while en route to prison is forced to endure the even worse punishment of having Schneider as his sidekick. Meanwhile, Rico begins a reign of terror his sponsor thinks will let him take power, or something, but of course the former has his own ends--to create a super-race of Judges that will let him be god...somehow...or something. But who cares, you'll never have time to think about when Assante's chewing scenery so much he basically ends up french kissing the camera!
There's another highlight as Dredd gets trapped in the desert and faces off against the Angel gang, cybernetic cannabil hillbillies who are taken pretty faithfully out of the comics. It's then up to him to return to the city and liberate it from Rico, by means of oversized shotguns and awkwardly greenscreened flying bike chases. Unfortunately, we kind of lose the self-consciously goofy edge the earlier part of the film has, and it feels increasingly like a tamed-down typical Stallone vehicle.
Right up until the very climax, that is! Stallone and Assante come face to face and do battle to see who can say 'Law' in the most throat-hurting way. Schneider gets gunned down by a pretty badass looking warrior robot (but he's not dead because grrrhgghgh), and Rico finally is defeated the way he lived--not knowing the meaning, or even very existence, of 'subtlety'. Dredd is re-instated to the force, does a kiss with Hershey that comes out of nowhere, and we're not even going to discuss the fact that the Judges got severely depleted thanks to Rico, as we have Alan Silvresti's awesomely bombastic score to enjoy! In all seriousness I do miss blockbusters of the nineties having orchestrals you could actually remember.
And there's Judge Dredd; twenty five years on, how does it hold up? It's really dumb, it has no real clue what it's doing, but it's so earnest and so over the top that it's worth a watch with beer and pretzels at least. It's best watched with friends who will all inevitably play the game of 'mimic Stallone the funniest'. And there's not much more to it.
Oh, there was the 2012 re-adaptation simply called Dredd, starring Karl Urban. The budget was far lower--Mega City now looks like Johannesburg with more giant skyscrapers--but the tone and story was very much straight out of a one-off strip of the comic, with a gritty atmosphere, lots of bloody violence, and Dredd himself being the stoic, stone-cold badass he is in the source material. It unfortunately flopped, and it is more or less a futuristic Die Hard, but competently executed nevertheless and worth a gander.
So there we have it. The lessons of today are that you should never let your inability to pronounce single-syllable words get in the way of a performance, and that codpieces deserve co-star credits too. And never, ever, betray the lurrrrrrgggghhhhhh.
Last time around, we discussed one of the high points of Sylvester Stallone's career, at least as far as box office and pop culture goes. Now, fast forward a decade into the nineties, we had him take on the comic book trend of that time--which, er, lent itself to very mixed results. Some extremely outright goofy results, no less. And here's one of them!
Before we go on, I want to natter about the source material, which is a soft spot of mine--most countries in Europe have their own comic book traditions, be it Asterix in France, Tintin in Belgium, and in the UK's case, the cynical and dark-humored scifi anthology 2000AD. Leading this title is future lawman Judge Dredd, who dispenses justice in the American sprawl of MegaCity One usually by means of ventilating suspects with his Lawgiver pistol. Insert your own joke about not much having changed with US law enforcement. Anyway, the strip was very varied in tone, be it sprawling epic storylines like the 'Apocalypse War' or 'Judgement Day', goofy satires spoofing trends or politics of the day, or rather poignant looks on the nature of the Judges themselves like 'America'. With all this material, surely Hollywood had enough to work with for their inevitable adaptation?
Well...honestly, compared to some comic book catastrophes in the nineties, they were closer than others. They (very loosely) adapted a specific storyline, they got the general look of Mega City One right, and it's clear from the little nods peppered around that someone was readying the strip. So why do fans of it tend to treat this one like an awkward drunken uncle in an ill-fitting spandex costume?
In the opening scene, following a nice intro narrated by James Earl Jones, we get introduced to Rob Schneider--for you kids there, you just need to know that he was one of those comedians in the nineties who inexplicably got himself film roles but unlike Adam Sandler ultimately never stuck around. He soon finds himself in the midst of an urban gang war, which prompts the arrival of Dredd, played with slurring gusto by Stallone himself.
 |
| Cue 'Watchya gonna do with all that junk'? |
Immediately, we get all we need to know about the film ahead in about thirty seconds, starting with the camera focusing on Dredd's massive codpiece, Stallone being incomprehensible, and then declaring that he's safe from bullets because he's outside their effective range (despite said bullets being fired straight downwards). In other words--it's really goddamn stupid. Question is, are we getting Rambo 3 stupid, or Stop or My Mom Will Shoot stupid?
Thankfully, it's more the former! Stallone plays things absolutely straight even as he's activating modes of his gun with names like 'Double Whammy', and his interaction with Judge Hershey (Diana Lane) is the most comically awkward setup for the inevitable romance you can imagine. The only downside through all this is Schneider, who keeps squawking dumb one-liners enough that you yearn for Dredd to impose a 'shut the fuck up' sentence by means of explosive bullets.
Oh, and not long after, we see Dredd remove his helmet, which he never does in the comics. Fans have found this...contestable for years, and my issue is that it detracts from the hilarity of Sly overacting everything to compensate for half his face being invisible.
Soon we get introduced to the real plot, which has the Chief Justice (played by the late great Max von Sydow) undermined by one of his deputies, who conspiracies with jailbreaked genetic super-Judge Rico, played by Armand Assante. Rico is another reason the movie enters the realm of glorious stupidity as opposed to intolerable stupidity--there is not one line, not one moment, where he's not apparently on several different types of crack. Nor, despite the movie's obsession with the word, can he pronounce the word 'law'. He can say 'looor', 'laaaawh', and 'LOOOOORGH', but that one syllable? Just can't be done.
Anyway, Dredd soon gets framed under the flimsiest pretences possible (there's apparently DNA tracking on his gun's bullets, but nobody points out that it could be planted or faked) and while en route to prison is forced to endure the even worse punishment of having Schneider as his sidekick. Meanwhile, Rico begins a reign of terror his sponsor thinks will let him take power, or something, but of course the former has his own ends--to create a super-race of Judges that will let him be god...somehow...or something. But who cares, you'll never have time to think about when Assante's chewing scenery so much he basically ends up french kissing the camera!
 |
| I had the same reaction to The Party At Kitty and Stud's. |
There's another highlight as Dredd gets trapped in the desert and faces off against the Angel gang, cybernetic cannabil hillbillies who are taken pretty faithfully out of the comics. It's then up to him to return to the city and liberate it from Rico, by means of oversized shotguns and awkwardly greenscreened flying bike chases. Unfortunately, we kind of lose the self-consciously goofy edge the earlier part of the film has, and it feels increasingly like a tamed-down typical Stallone vehicle.
Right up until the very climax, that is! Stallone and Assante come face to face and do battle to see who can say 'Law' in the most throat-hurting way. Schneider gets gunned down by a pretty badass looking warrior robot (but he's not dead because grrrhgghgh), and Rico finally is defeated the way he lived--not knowing the meaning, or even very existence, of 'subtlety'. Dredd is re-instated to the force, does a kiss with Hershey that comes out of nowhere, and we're not even going to discuss the fact that the Judges got severely depleted thanks to Rico, as we have Alan Silvresti's awesomely bombastic score to enjoy! In all seriousness I do miss blockbusters of the nineties having orchestrals you could actually remember.
And there's Judge Dredd; twenty five years on, how does it hold up? It's really dumb, it has no real clue what it's doing, but it's so earnest and so over the top that it's worth a watch with beer and pretzels at least. It's best watched with friends who will all inevitably play the game of 'mimic Stallone the funniest'. And there's not much more to it.
Oh, there was the 2012 re-adaptation simply called Dredd, starring Karl Urban. The budget was far lower--Mega City now looks like Johannesburg with more giant skyscrapers--but the tone and story was very much straight out of a one-off strip of the comic, with a gritty atmosphere, lots of bloody violence, and Dredd himself being the stoic, stone-cold badass he is in the source material. It unfortunately flopped, and it is more or less a futuristic Die Hard, but competently executed nevertheless and worth a gander.
So there we have it. The lessons of today are that you should never let your inability to pronounce single-syllable words get in the way of a performance, and that codpieces deserve co-star credits too. And never, ever, betray the lurrrrrrgggghhhhhh.
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