Judge Dredd (1995) vs. Dredd (2012)

I recently (re)watched Judge Dredd (1995), starring Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider, and Dredd (2012), starring Karl Urban.

Let’s start with Dredd.

In short: solid movie.

It has a start. It does the thing. It ends.

Good A → B storytelling.

The world they live in is established within a few minutes. The stakes are set. The objective is identified. Dredd goes into a building, has a problem to solve and spends the rest of the movie solving that problem.

That’s pretty much it.

And it works.

Karl Urban spends the entire movie looking like somebody just told him the McDonald’s ice cream machine is broken, and somehow that is exactly what Judge Dredd needs.

Hard 8/10.

I would rewatch it on my own because it’s just a good movie.

Then there’s Judge Dredd (1995).

It is none of those things.

The color palette perhaps mirrors the comics better, and maybe knowing the source material would make the repetitive catchphrases more stomachable.

But when you have Stallone mumbling his way through every line, possessing god-tier plot armor and having an entire lifelong backstory shoehorned into throwaway conversations here and there, it turns what I suspect is a super badass comic book character into a cartoon voiced by Sylvester Stallone.

And then there’s Rob Schneider.

Rob Schneider wore shorts throughout this movie, and somehow that made him worse.

He is the comic relief and has a one-liner for every conceivable situation. He is also apparently a hacker. This does not play into much of anything throughout the movie.

Also, he’s wearing shorts.

Like, baggy cargo shorts.

They’re in a dystopian hellscape where heavily armed fascist cops ride motorcycles through a radioactive wasteland while dispensing summary executions, and Rob Schneider looks like his mom dropped him off at Six Flags for the afternoon.

There are clones. Cannibals. Giant robots. Political conspiracies. Murder. Betrayal. A fascist justice system. Sylvester Stallone screaming about THE LAW.

And Rob Schneider is just walking around in cargo shorts.

3/10.

Some people may genuinely enjoy this kind of campy movie, and I understand why. But for me, Judge Dredd is the kind of movie you finish, stare silently at the credits for a moment and eventually ask:

“Why did you make this?”

EDITOR’S NOTE: After writing this review, I looked back over footage and images from Judge Dredd (1995), and I do not believe Rob Schneider was actually wearing shorts throughout the entire movie.

This changes nothing.

My mind’s eye only sees Rob Schneider wearing shorts.