Judge Dredd – Old Stoneyface; the law man of the future – is coming back to the silver screen. For those of you who don’t know who Dredd is (do you live on the moon or something?) here is a quick history lesson:

Judge Joseph Dredd first appeared in the second issue of the British SF anthology comic 2000AD – dated the 5th of March 1977. He was created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra – with some input from then editor Pat Mills.

Dredd is a law enforcement officer in a massive, violent city – Mega City One – in the distant future. The government of the city is the Judges. Judges are police, judge and jury. And, in the overpopulated city – where city ‘blocks’ are enormous sky scrapers housing thousands of, mostly unemployed, citizens – are all that stands between order and outright chaos. Dredd is – as he puts it – The Law.

The current Judge Dredd film is being shot in Cape Town, South Africa. It isn’t the first however. Back in 1995 Sylvester Stallone stared as Dredd in a film that also featured Diane Lane, Rob Schneider, Armand Assante and Max Von Sydow (The Exorcist, Strange Brew).

The plot saw Dredd framed by his clone ‘brother’ Rico (Assante) after the latter was released from prison by corrupt Judge Griffen (Jurgen Prochnow). Chief Judge Fargo (Von Sydow) – Dredd’s former mentor – blames himself for Dredd’s apparent failure, resigns his post and takes ‘The Long Walk‘ in to the wasteland outside the city. Griffen takes his place as Chief Judge – his plan all along.

Dredd is sent to prison in the wastelands, but, due to a huge coincidence, escapes and heads back to the city – after learning, from Fargo (who he – coincidently – bumped into) that he and Rico are clones.

Meanwhile Rico – on Griffen’s orders – has been causing chaos so that Griffen can reopen the cloning project that created Dredd and Rico, and take full control of the whole city. Dredd arrives back and saves the day, with Rico falling to his death from atop the Statue of Liberty. And if you want to know more details you’ll have to go and watch it yourself.

Whilst it is not a truly terrible action film – there are far worse – it’s just not Judge Dredd.

One thing that many fans complained about at the time – and still do – is that, for most of the film, Dredd doesn’t wear his helmet. While this doesn’t seem like a big thing – and in a sense it’s not – Dredd, in the comics is never seen without his helmet on – a conscious decision to help show the facelessness of the law.

A much larger problem with the film was its lackadaisical plot and use of elements from the comics – some of which just feel stuffed-in in an attempt to woe fans. For example, in the film the ‘Angel gang‘ attacks Dredd in the wastelands. They are an important part of the Judge Dredd mythology, but here they are reduced to cannibal rednecks – with only Mean Machine coming close to the comics – and are all dispatched in the space of 10 minutes. Pointless.

The film was a wasted opportunity, and quite disappointing. Hopefully the new film will help to erase at least some of it from the memory. So far there has only been a trickle of news about the film – a few photos of the sets, which remind me more of Robocop than the 2000AD comics (not that that is a bad thing). So it’s nice to see a new picture of Karl Urban as Dredd (via Bleeding Cool), and it looks really good.

The new film is being directed by Pete Travis and will feature, along with Urban, Olivia Thirlby as Psi Judge Anderson, and Cersei Lannister Lena Headey as the films villain Madeline ‘Ma-Ma’ Madrigal.

It’s slightly disappointing that the Dark Judges don’t appear to be in the film, but the word is that Dredd will keep his helmet on for the entire film. Fan boys can breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s rumored for release in the U.K. on the 1st of December 2011 – yup, this year. Odds are it will actually be 2012, so far no word on an official release date for the U.S. (or anywhere else).