Judge Minty- A judge Dredd fan film

         After Dredd failed to perform at the box office and before the upcoming series was announced, Judge Dredd: Mega-city one was announced the hope for more live action Judge Dredd seemed like a lost cause, and a group of fans took it upon themselves to make arguably the best, Judge Dredd film yet (that doesn’t even star Dredd). It takes the short prog about Judge Minty which introduced the concept of the long walk (essentially the worst retirement plan imaginable) and expands it into twenty seven glorious minutes.

The costume design is top notch, taking inspiration from blending the over the top comic look they somehow made it look good and convincing in live action (A feat that many superhero films with larger budgets failed to do) I personally like the look better than either live action Dredd adaption do far. Speaking of costume design the one prop I wish we got to see more was the law-master, it looked really good, it’s a shame we never got a good long look at it.

Fortunately, I found some sweet pics of that lawgiver online,I sure wish they got to show it off a bit more

           The film wisely doesn’t stay in mega-city one for too long, the effects they use in the city are passable, and their quality is completely understandable considering the scale of the crew available. They keep it stylized which helps because they wouldn’t pass for hyper-realistic, which in a Dredd film they don’t have to. I don’t want to give away the other major use of effects in the film, but they do an incredible job with everything in the cursed earth.

           Minty’s solemn demeanor and style is well done. Some of the dialog is pulled straight from the comic which helps as well but they do good expanding on the role. His attitude and remorse for his justifiable action does sound believable from a man who has been in a system which fails to fix the problem for so long. In-fact his crazy ideas seem reasonable. 

          He does have a decent amount of character development in the run-time provided though, and the ending shot is nothing short of awesome, leaving you wanting more.

         The action is competently directed, I am not a fan of fast cuts, but the style works well enough for this, the lighting sometimes has problems, but its not large enough to ruin the movie

         This paragraph is where we get into spoiler territory but my biggest gripe, I believe is worth mentioning, My only problem from a story standpoint is we never see Minty enforce any laws in the cursed earth beyond self-defense, It would have been a nice touch to see him save someone, treat them with the kindness he keeps talking about, something to the extent of bringing law to the lawless beyond the final scene.  

         In the end Judge Minty is not just the best Dredd fan film but one of the best fan films for any character online. It perfectly captures the costumes and the majority of its flaws are completely reasonable given the very small size of the films production, it manages to succeed in many ways other films, fan or otherwise failed, perfect costume design. while it may have a few flaws the good far outweighs the bad more than any other Dredd fan film online and is worth checking out for even semi casual fans of Dredd. Check it out I got the link below!