The V7 Report: Dredd 3D
9 Sep 2012 19:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patentdragonWell, this is pretty much the end of a VERY satisfying Blockbuster Season, and it concludes last night in spectacularly bloody fashion with Dredd (3D)...
Sly Stallone's Dredd outing was good in parts - it had The Angel Gang, and a cracking Hammerstein ABC Warrior - but then Joe Dredd TOOK OFF THE DAMN HELMET and KISSED A GIRL (Judge), going against so much that made the character an anti-hero for many. The fans have been dreading (ouch) another movie, in case it took similar liberties with the character and his world - so, are they going to be disappointed again...?
Hell, no. Karl Urban, lauded for his portrayal of Dr. McCoy in the new Star Trek gets right to the core of Dredd. Not for one second does he disappoint, delivering Mega-City justice without blinking an eye - not that you'd be able to tell, of course. Olivia Thirlby gets an iconic introduction to the world of Dredd, playing Psi-Judge Cass Anderson, on the character's rookie evaluation. "Mutie" she may be, but she's the more human conduit into "Dredd-world", and dispensing the law isn't as mechanical for her. She faces challenges aplenty, but you can start to see the published character coming through - comic book movies sometimes suffer from "origin story syndrome", but this is a good variation on that theme.
Just about every other character in the movie pretty much falls into the category "due to die shortly" - and the deaths come fairly constantly, and often in lingering detail. The drug "Slo-Mo", at the heart of the story from the beginning, allow for some pretty serious "death-porn", often with the added sugar-coating of 3D...
Ah yes, the 3D. This is one of the best uses of the technique in quite a while, adding the unrealism (is that a word?) to the Slo-Mo sequences, particularly at the end. You're not straining to see the 3D when it might be expected - it's not used to any great extent in any of the main action sequences - but when blood and broken glass is flying, there it is, drawing you into the violence. This is an 18-certificate movie, and it doesn't hold back from reminding you, from the first two hundred storey drop to the last.
And this leaves us with... what? A surprisingly low-budget feel in places, as the movies Mega-City One is depicted as something of a present-day slum, but with bigger tower-blocks, and only an occasional nod at anything futuristic, yet that doesn't detract from the whole. In a world where most of the United States is a radioactive wasteland, maybe this is as far as society has regenerated, or needs to regenerate. It's a shine-free canvas for the Judges to stamp their authority, and the "big outdoors" doesn't really factor in the equation at all once the action heads indoors, and remains there.
In conclusion, this isn't as polished a movie as Stallone's outing, and that's a good thing. Strong on characters, stingy on effects, heavy on the gore and violence - there's nothing for the Dredd fan to complain about, including this lapsed fan, driven away from 2000AD by the title's swerve into studenty territory (can't remember when I last read it). Dare I say this last course in this year's Blockbuster menu is decidedly... meaty?
The Final Verdict: Stallone's Dredd movie has more in it, but less of the "soul" of Dredd, which shines through here. A winner - just trust the people who KNOW do make the movies that WORK. 8/10
Sly Stallone's Dredd outing was good in parts - it had The Angel Gang, and a cracking Hammerstein ABC Warrior - but then Joe Dredd TOOK OFF THE DAMN HELMET and KISSED A GIRL (Judge), going against so much that made the character an anti-hero for many. The fans have been dreading (ouch) another movie, in case it took similar liberties with the character and his world - so, are they going to be disappointed again...?
Hell, no. Karl Urban, lauded for his portrayal of Dr. McCoy in the new Star Trek gets right to the core of Dredd. Not for one second does he disappoint, delivering Mega-City justice without blinking an eye - not that you'd be able to tell, of course. Olivia Thirlby gets an iconic introduction to the world of Dredd, playing Psi-Judge Cass Anderson, on the character's rookie evaluation. "Mutie" she may be, but she's the more human conduit into "Dredd-world", and dispensing the law isn't as mechanical for her. She faces challenges aplenty, but you can start to see the published character coming through - comic book movies sometimes suffer from "origin story syndrome", but this is a good variation on that theme.
Just about every other character in the movie pretty much falls into the category "due to die shortly" - and the deaths come fairly constantly, and often in lingering detail. The drug "Slo-Mo", at the heart of the story from the beginning, allow for some pretty serious "death-porn", often with the added sugar-coating of 3D...
Ah yes, the 3D. This is one of the best uses of the technique in quite a while, adding the unrealism (is that a word?) to the Slo-Mo sequences, particularly at the end. You're not straining to see the 3D when it might be expected - it's not used to any great extent in any of the main action sequences - but when blood and broken glass is flying, there it is, drawing you into the violence. This is an 18-certificate movie, and it doesn't hold back from reminding you, from the first two hundred storey drop to the last.
And this leaves us with... what? A surprisingly low-budget feel in places, as the movies Mega-City One is depicted as something of a present-day slum, but with bigger tower-blocks, and only an occasional nod at anything futuristic, yet that doesn't detract from the whole. In a world where most of the United States is a radioactive wasteland, maybe this is as far as society has regenerated, or needs to regenerate. It's a shine-free canvas for the Judges to stamp their authority, and the "big outdoors" doesn't really factor in the equation at all once the action heads indoors, and remains there.
In conclusion, this isn't as polished a movie as Stallone's outing, and that's a good thing. Strong on characters, stingy on effects, heavy on the gore and violence - there's nothing for the Dredd fan to complain about, including this lapsed fan, driven away from 2000AD by the title's swerve into studenty territory (can't remember when I last read it). Dare I say this last course in this year's Blockbuster menu is decidedly... meaty?
The Final Verdict: Stallone's Dredd movie has more in it, but less of the "soul" of Dredd, which shines through here. A winner - just trust the people who KNOW do make the movies that WORK. 8/10
