Each month, the Good/Bad Film Club pairs a touchstone cult classic alongside a thematically linked, less beloved film. Whether unearthing curios from the history of cult cinema, making the case for an unfairly maligned secret classic, or enjoying the simple pleasures of a wonderfully bad film, we promise eye-opening presentations from the highways and byways of film history, celebrating the bad, the good and the misunderstood in cult cinema.
This month, to mark the release of Alex Garland’s phenomenal dystopian thriller Civil War, we present his brutally fantastic take on Judge Dredd from 2012, presented in glorious 3D. And what else could we pair with it than one of the great blockbuster bombs of the 90s: yes, it’s Danny Cannon’s wildly misjudged, extremely fun Judge Dredd from 1995.
Dredd 3D (2012)
The not-too-distant future – America is a dystopian wasteland. Kingpin drug pusher Ma-Ma (Lena Headey, Game of Thrones) is the latest threat on the radar of the Judges, a deadly urban police force intent on crushing crime. As judge, jury and executioner, the Judges call on their top-ranking officer, Dredd (Karl Urban, Star Trek) to take down Ma-Ma. Partnered up with the rooky Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirby), Dredd intends to dispense his usual brand of swift justice. But Ma-Ma’s stranglehold over a 200-storey tower block sets the scene for a battle of epic proportions.
Directed by Peter Travis and written and produced by Alex Garland (Annihilation), this explosive adaptation of the popular Dredd comics crafts a convincing dystopian future, making great use of 3D to create an action romp as fun as it is brutal.
Judge Dredd (1995)
Super cop Judge Dredd (Sylvester Stallone) is accused of a crime he did not commit. Now he finds himself at the mercy of the uncompromising and violent police force he once called his partners.
His guilty doppelganger is on the loose. Can Dredd stop him and clear his name before he finds himself utterly and irrevocably judged?
A huge critical and commercial failure on its original release, Dredd is often enjoyable for completely the wrong reasons. It’s nevertheless a campy treat, and as one of the last studio blockbusters carried by practical effects before the transition to digital, is also an unexpectedly impressive big screen actioner.