There should be a criminal punishment for movie trailer editors who give away too much of a movie’s plot in a should-be simple two-and-a-half minute preview. If such was the case, the person pieced together the trailer for The Judge would be serving a very, very long sentence.
If you’ve seen the trailer for The Judge, then you know exactly where it’s headed. You know the characters, their dynamics and the entire plot. The only thing you don’t know is the outcome of the trail. That’s the only thing that’s up in the air – but for those who haven’t seen the trailer, I’ll describe the premise anyway.
Robert Downey Jr. stars as Iron Man‘s Tony Stark, only with a law degree instead of a super suit. The daddy issues are just as prevalent. When his mother passes away, he returns home for the funeral and gets stuck in the town that he couldn’t get out of fast enough. His esteemed judge father, played by Robert Duvall, is fingered in a hit-and-run accident that left a local man dead. Now, he must defend his stubborn and angry father. The two attempt to make amends with each other while making amends with the law.
There are some truly great aspects of The Judge, like the performances by Downey, Duvall, Farmiga and D’Onofro, but the movie itself is so cliché, predictable and average that it’s not worth watching. On top of that, it’s so long that having everything spoiled in the trailer makes it feel even longer. In the film, it takes 141 minutes for it to do exactly what the trailer does in two minutes and 30 seconds. Knowing where it’s taking its time going makes The Judge a long bore.
The verdict is in and it’s not good. Although The Judge is full of great performances and some great character moments, it ultimately fails in a very long and drawn-out way.
(Photo credit: Warner Bros.)
