Judge Dredd: America Audiobook
Reading time: 2 minutes
I'll start by saying that I'm not the biggest fan of audiobooks. I honestly don't know how people prefer this to reading as my mind wanders or I get distracted and then I have no idea what has been said. But, listening to some good old 2000 AD? I'm going to try my hardest to keep my mind focused!
The first I listened to was Judge Dredd: America, and what a great choice to be adapted into an audiobook. It has a two-hour runtime and the story flows along nicely with little bits of music and FX now and then. It's a straight adaptation of the source material. I've read America a few times in my life and I'm pretty confident in saying that you could pick the comic up and read along with the narration, which is perfect as it's arguably the best Dredd story ever made (if not, it's certainly right up there) and it doesn't need many, if any, additions or removals. It's perfect as it is, even if Dredd is wholly unlikeable in the story. Who said Judges are meant to be liked though?
As for the performances, the standout is Matthew Jacobs-Morgan’s Benny Beeny with his tragic narration in the second half of the book really selling the darkness of this story and how it has affected people along with his guilt for betraying America.
The real talking piece of this though will be Joseph Fiennes' portrayal of Judge Dredd. He's a good actor and I was looking forward to seeing what he would bring, but unfortunately, I'm not buying it. He comes across as soft-spoken with the occasional bit of sounding grumpy. Maybe it's me and my expectations, but when I read Dredd in the pages of 2000 AD, he's a lot gruffer sounding. One of the bits I truly loved about the 2012 Dredd film was that Karl Urban talked like I've always read Dredd speaking and that's what I want. Fiennes is great, it's a solid performance, but it's not how Dredd sounds to me.
All in all, it's a great listening experience for newcomers and fans of Dredd alike, providing you can accept a softer-spoken Dredd that is. I cannot it seems. It was so close to being perfect and everything I wanted. I still like Fiennes though, and I feel like his Dredd will split opinions. Some will love it, some will be like me and can only accept Dredd sounding deeper and rougher. If this is the standard that they're adopting for their audiobooks though, then I'm very interested in what other comics they'll adapt (other than the 4 others already announced/released).
Rating: 4.5/5
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