Let's get Dreddy to rumble...

If you grew up in the 80s and 90s like I did and you read comic books, there is a fairly high percentage chance you read 2000AD or at least saw it on the shelves in your local newsagent, stashed out of reach near the brightly coloured porn magazines which you weren't quite old enough to be into yet. It was violent and anti-establishment and home to one of the most iconic law enforcement officers ever conceived. Judge Dredd.

I've always been a massive fan of Dredd and some of his 2000AD stable-mates like ABC Warriors rank among some of my all-time favourite characters and comics. I think it was the pure, joyful chaos that abounded which got me hooked in; everything about it was gleefully over the top (and dare I get political for a brief moment and use the term prophetic?). Comics are such a visual media already that it surprises me that more attempts haven't been made to get 2000AD titles green lit. What we have had so far is two vastly different takes on Mega City One and the Judges with equally different fan reactions.

I remember sometime around 1991, there was an April Fool article in one of the comics about an upcoming movie starring Chuck Norris as Dredd. Personally, I can't stand those Chuck Norris jokes partially because they aren't funny and partially because I'm not convinced Chuck Norris has done anything worth quite that much adulation. Yeah he was a bad guy in Way of the Dragon but you're not coming out on top against Bruce Lee and Walker: Texas Ranger was frankly crap. He does have a chin though, which when you're casting a character who is really only recognisable by the lower half of his face is pretty important. It seemed reasonable at the time, and objectively, still does.

Fast forward to 1995, and the search for The Chin found fruit. Or more accurately a chin, which made it a particularly worthwhile and well-planned endeavour. I can't imagine they didn't consider Bruce Campbell, a man also predominantly only recognised by his lower mandible. Fair play to all concerned however because the illustrious, if slightly lopsided jawline of Sylvester Stallone was frankly a great choice. It did however, give us the single most blasphemous moment in Dredd history. He took off his helmet. (15 yards, unsportsmanlike conduct, loss of down).

You really have to understand how significant this is. In the comics, he's only ever been shown without his helmet from behind, in shadows or with his face out of frame. As far as I'm aware, nobody's ever even drawn his face. It's like Batman trolling around Gotham with his Bruce Wayne mug on display or Superman not curling his fringe and leaving his glasses on. Stupidest disguise ever by the way, God I hate that tool. Anyway...

I don't know if it was ego or planned from the start but somebody clearly decided there was no way you could cover your headlining star's face for the best part of 90 minutes. It wasn't a complete wash; there's a lot of good in there, in flashes. Mean Machine and the Angel Gang crop up, if only briefly and there's a cameo from Hammerstein which was cool I guess but massively underused. The absolute best thing about the whole thing was the city itself; all claustrophobic neon and dirty little alleyways. It genuinely felt like it was just pulled straight of the pages. As a movie though, it suffered from being almost too full of references. Put it this way (tenuous food-based analogy warning ahoy!): As delicious as a nice full apple pie is, if you have too much filling it just spills out everywhere and makes a mess. Plus you have to consider the ice cream or custard and before you know it, your plate is overflowing and you aren't really sure what you're looking at.

Super-fast forward to a few years back. 2012 and the years have taken their toll on chins across the world. Dredd is returning after a 17 year hiatus and I assume Sly, Bruce and Chuck have all been put out to pasture or wherever chins go when they retire. You know what? It's a hell of a movie, mostly because everything the first movie got wrong, they fixed.

Karl Urban keeps his helmet on, grimaces his way through the minimalist dialogue in basically the only way Dredd would and it's as bleak and violent a look at the future as you'd expect. There were understandably (but I think unfairly) a whole bunch of comparisons with The Raid. The format is kind of similar (OK, OK it's the same) but tonally it's very different. There are some great set pieces, large amounts of explosives and ammunition thrown around the place and even though it was probably just stuck in there so they could monkey about with the effects, the Slo-Mo bits were really effective. Even the soundtrack is awesome. If I had to fault one thing, it would be that although the Mega Block was pretty well realised, the overall city scape wasn't great and sort of felt like they used the Photoshop stamp tool on a corner of a rundown part of South Africa and just copy/repeated. Yes, it was gritty, but I genuinely think if you took a little of the shine off Stallone's Mega City you'd actually not be far off.

Sadly, it flopped. American audiences, presumably less familiar with a very British institution, were clearly not impressed. I can only assume that the lack of a clearly delineated origin story, helpful plot points not spelled out in fluorescent paint and no character development plastered all over the actor's wardrobe in the form of slogans and tattoos all made for a terribly confusing affair. Imagine if the production team behind Suicide Squad had got on it? Dredd would have a half-face tattoo saying "The Law", Anderson would be in booty shorts and wearing a cropped t-shirt with "Daddy's Little Psychic" emblazoned in cursive across it and Ma Ma Madrigal would probably have to constantly hold up a sign like Wile E Coyote every time she did something villainous. I'm genuinely surprised Zack Snyder didn't try and get hold of it, what with all the slow motion, but I'm glad he didn't; I'm not sure I could stomach a 3 hour long version where Dredd stops trying to arrest the bad guys because he realises their best friends from youth both had puppies call Bingo who died in unrelated and entirely coincidental accidents involving hedge trimmers and a bowler hat full of marmalade.

It's a damn shame. I loved it, fans loved it, Karl Urban loved doing it, but if you can't recoup your outgoings not even a petition on change.org is going to sway the money men. I guess we're going to have to accept it's dead and buried, but then again maybe there is some hope. You cannot kill what does not live, right?