Dredd Film Review

 
by The Wanderer

Director: Pete Travis
Cast: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris, and Lena Headey.
Series: Judge Dredd

MPAA Rating: R

Length: 95 minutes

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Inhabitants of Peach Trees … This Is Judge Dredd

Lord of the Rings vs. Game of Thrones.  Dredd may be the closest thing to a fight between these two great franchises that fans will ever see as the vindictive Judge Dredd (Karl Urban – Eomer in Lord of the Rings) battles the evil drug and gang overlord Ma-ma (Lena Headey – Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones) for supremacy in a city sized skyscraper.

Although the inevitable final show down between these two actors never matches the epicness of each of the film/tv work they are most famous for, surprisingly Dredd turns out to be a very entertaining action flick.

Set in the future United States in Mega City One, a massive city with 800 million residents where 17,000 crimes are committed a day, Judge Dredd is called to investigate some murders at the Peach Trees skyscraper.  Dredd is ordered to bring along a rookie named Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) who failed the Judge tests, but has great psionic potential.

After arriving at Peach Trees and investigating the murders leads Dredd and Anderson to discover the city’s primary drug den for a new type of drug called Slo-Mo which can slow a user perception of time to 1% of normal.  The gang and its powerful overlord (Ma-ma) trap the two judges inside the city sized skyscraper and a battle between the judges and gangs begins.

With a movie that looked like it was going to be a sure failure, I was really surprised about how well it came out, at least by action film standards. The brilliance of this movie centers around the fact the film audience is geared to empathize with the rookie Anderson as she experiences the carnage that this movie dishes out. The choice to not focus on Dredd who is a simple minded character, albeit an entertaining one, pays off greatly.

Not much in the acting department is required to pull off Dredd, but still Urban does a fantastic job.  He pulls off a solid, uber masculine American sounding accent, despite the fact that he speaks naturally with a British sounding New Zealand accent. Olivia Thirlby holds her own with the veteran cast, and she does an excellent job of making it easy to empathize with her and subsequently the situation.

The standout in the acting department though belongs to Lena Headey as Ma-ma.  Unfortunately Ma-ma doesn’t get as much screen time as she deserves, but Lena makes every second count.  More could have been done to develop this character’s back story, but Dredd doesn’t like to go too long without blowing something up or seeing someone get shot.

The final battle between Dredd and Ma-ma is a bit of a let down, but everything leading up to it manages to be pretty exciting.  A lot of people get killed in this movie, it doesn’t quite reach the point it did in Rambo IV, but at times Dredd gets pretty close.  As Dredd is about to get out of control Rambo style, the movie allows Anderson to pull viewers back, which allows this film to not get turned into the joke Rambo IV was.

One thing that will surely capture viewers attention is the sequences filmed in slow motion.  Sometimes slow motion is used to give audiences the perceived visual effect of what’s like to take slo-mo.  Other times it’s to show the gruesomeness of a particularly violent scene.  Where these slow motion shots were made famous by 300, Dredd puts a spin on them by making them extra shiny.  That’s right, shiny as in sparkly… like a description Stephanie Meyer uses to describe Twilight characters.  The spectacle created by this is surreal since the visual images look so crisp and beautiful while they are being juxtaposed with all of these images of violence and horror.  The emotional impact watching these scenes is jarring, it creates a vortex of emotional confusion, leaving you in state where you really don’t know what to think about what you just saw.

Dredd is a hyper paced violent slaughter of movie extras and even some better developed characters.  With plenty of action and a quick running time, this is a flawed, but fun movie that will surely entertain any fan of action films.

Score: 8.6