Should You Dread Seeing Dredd?
Dredd 3D Movie Review
NO SPOILERS
Life was always going to be tough for the new Judge Dredd film, being labelled as a comic book film in a year consisting of The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-man, The Dark Knight Rises and erm... Ghost Rider 2....
But what sparked my interest is that Dredd 3D is not a simple comic book movie clone, with a sympathetic character going on a journey, falling in love, having a secret identity and a crisis point. Instead it's a shameless R rated, blood infested action movie. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Dredd 3D reminds me of the 2008 film Punisher War Zone, which I found hugely entertaining but critics hated. It's about a badass with a motive, to deal out justice the old fashioned way, with no distractions. In particular the intro sequence is nice, a bike/car chase seen which introduces us to everything that we need to know about Dredd- he gets the job done, no matter what. Dredd doesn't even take off his helmet. We see Karl Urban put it on at the start of the film and because it's never removed it makes the whole thing feel like a glimpse into Dredd's everyday routine. Same s#@%, different day. Very nice touch.
Good performance by Karl Urban who really needs to start getting more leading man roles and is one of the most underrated actors around at the moment. I mean he really pulls off frowning for two hours and looking down the scope of rifle like no one else could. Lena Heady is a memorable villain too, both visually and just for the sheer fact she's a powerful female villain in an action flick.
The overall look of the film is very nice. The futuristic city really reminds me of how Akira should look if it ever makes it to live action. Seriously nice visuals. Everything is clearly futuristic, but believable and relatable at the same time, such as Dredd's bike, obviously still resembling a bike, just with a design we've never seen before, again similar to Akira. There's no flying cars here! The 'slo mo' effect will probably be controversial because it is very slow indeed (1% of normal time) and could have maybe been put to better use at times. I'm glad though that its use was limited and like Sherlock Holmes 2's 'mind time' it was used enough to be effective but not over used, even though it could easily have been.
Oh and the 3D while overall isn't fantastic and doesn't add much depth, does have some very nice moments, making use of the slo mo feature.
Overall there's some nice action scenes, good special effects, great visuals and good performances all round. It does get a bit stale around the middle area but if you're a lad, then Dredd 3D is a film for you.
Manages to stay true to the Dredd comic books but avoids becoming another forgotten blip in the generic superhero genre, thanks to an R rating and nice, shameless commitment to action and badass-ness.
The Good: The visuals, the action
The Bad: The relatively stale middle section
The Result: 3.7/5
Go see it lads!
Dredd 3D Movie Review
 |
| Want to know what Karl Urban looks like under the mask? Then don't watch Dredd 3D.... |
NO SPOILERS
 |
| I though it was spelt 'judgement' too. Turns out this is how you spell it in a legal sense. Nice. |
Life was always going to be tough for the new Judge Dredd film, being labelled as a comic book film in a year consisting of The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-man, The Dark Knight Rises and erm... Ghost Rider 2....
But what sparked my interest is that Dredd 3D is not a simple comic book movie clone, with a sympathetic character going on a journey, falling in love, having a secret identity and a crisis point. Instead it's a shameless R rated, blood infested action movie. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Dredd 3D reminds me of the 2008 film Punisher War Zone, which I found hugely entertaining but critics hated. It's about a badass with a motive, to deal out justice the old fashioned way, with no distractions. In particular the intro sequence is nice, a bike/car chase seen which introduces us to everything that we need to know about Dredd- he gets the job done, no matter what. Dredd doesn't even take off his helmet. We see Karl Urban put it on at the start of the film and because it's never removed it makes the whole thing feel like a glimpse into Dredd's everyday routine. Same s#@%, different day. Very nice touch.
Good performance by Karl Urban who really needs to start getting more leading man roles and is one of the most underrated actors around at the moment. I mean he really pulls off frowning for two hours and looking down the scope of rifle like no one else could. Lena Heady is a memorable villain too, both visually and just for the sheer fact she's a powerful female villain in an action flick.
 |
| Seriously, Karl Urban frowns like this for 2 hours. |
The overall look of the film is very nice. The futuristic city really reminds me of how Akira should look if it ever makes it to live action. Seriously nice visuals. Everything is clearly futuristic, but believable and relatable at the same time, such as Dredd's bike, obviously still resembling a bike, just with a design we've never seen before, again similar to Akira. There's no flying cars here! The 'slo mo' effect will probably be controversial because it is very slow indeed (1% of normal time) and could have maybe been put to better use at times. I'm glad though that its use was limited and like Sherlock Holmes 2's 'mind time' it was used enough to be effective but not over used, even though it could easily have been.
Oh and the 3D while overall isn't fantastic and doesn't add much depth, does have some very nice moments, making use of the slo mo feature.
Overall there's some nice action scenes, good special effects, great visuals and good performances all round. It does get a bit stale around the middle area but if you're a lad, then Dredd 3D is a film for you.
Manages to stay true to the Dredd comic books but avoids becoming another forgotten blip in the generic superhero genre, thanks to an R rating and nice, shameless commitment to action and badass-ness.
 |
| Both futuristic and recognisable. |
The Good: The visuals, the action
The Bad: The relatively stale middle section
The Result: 3.7/5
Go see it lads!
Comments
Post a Comment