I was never a big comic book fan growing up. My love of reading comes from my mother force feeding me children mysteries she'd borrow on her own library card and from the small town boredom that actually pushed me to read them. I was never visual enough to appreciate comics and I have this idea entrenched deep in my subconscious brain that novels offer more bang for your buck. If a franchise could bridge the gap between comics and pulp for me, it's Judge Dredd, the one stop shop lawman. Sylvester Stallone's awesome iteraton didn't convince the fans in the 1990s, so I was looking forward to what a decade and a half of perspective could do to this fascinating concept in DREDD,
The idea behind the screenplay of DREDD is simple, borderline simplistic. Two judges (cops, judge and executioners), one brutal and efficient motherfucker named Dredd (Karl Urban) and one mysterious psychic lady named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) are in charge of investigating a gangland execution that happened in a 200-storey high project tower called Peach Trees. It's the home of criminal mastermind Madeline Madrigal (Lena Heady), known on the street as Ma Ma, the producer and distributor of a new hop drug called SLO-MO, which slows time down to 1% of its natural course. Ma Ma has no intention of letting Dredd and Anderson walk out of her headquarters alive. She offers a bounty for their corpses to her tenants and murderous shenanigans ensue.
DREDD was a movie built for 3D. The norm wants movies to have the ''token inserted slow motion 3D scene'' in them, but DREDD was written with the idea of cramming as much scenes like this as possible in 95 minutes and to make them as unpredictable as it gets, thanks to SLO-MO, which was conveniently created for that very purpose. So yeah, DREDD was a clever project from the start. It's a little strange to watch it on a home screen, but to its credit it's also an aesthetically pleasing movie. Every frame is patiently studied, the way a comic book box is drawn and director Pete Travis never forces the origins of Judge Dredd down your throat. If you didn't know DREDD comes from a comic book before watching it, it's possible you won't know afterwards, and it's fine.
Looks a little strange without the 3D flare.
There isn't much to DREDD though, except for its visual prowess. You need to press play knowing what you're in for to enjoy the movie to its fullest, otherwise you might perceive it as a little hollow and you woudn't be wrong. Judge Dredd pretty much judges, juries and executes his way through DREDD and embodies the potential fantasies of self-sufficient justice of every viewer. If you're not on board with the idea of a preordained, subjectively applied justice (and why wouldn't you be in this day and age?), you might find that DREDD bends a little on the fascist side, In this universe, there is the law and the criminals only. The silent majority is never seen unless its dying under a sea of bullets on screen. I found it to be a little weird. DREDD could've made a better effort a creating a subtler, more layered universe, but you know. 3D was clearly the priority here.
The conundrum of any director adapting a cult comic book into a major motion picture goes as follows: what is more profitable? Pleasing the fanboys and offering them an orgy of what they like or do you try to please as many people as you can by shooting a movie that appeals to the broadest audience possible? DREDD found its spot inside this unsolvable continuum and leans towards comic book integrity, but not too much. There is an amount of undecipherable violence to it that'll keep the well-thinking audience at bay, but there is also a quirky presentation heavily inspired by Indonesian firecracker THE RAID : REDEMPTION * that ought to keep fans of kinetic action movies happy. I didn't think all that much of DREDD. I don't think it was meant to be all that much past its theater run, to be honest.
* My buddy Sam Hawken kindly pointed out that DREDD was in post-production before THE RAID was even shot, so thank you Sam !
* My buddy Sam Hawken kindly pointed out that DREDD was in post-production before THE RAID was even shot, so thank you Sam !