Dredd Film Review

Dredd - "Negotiation's over. Sentence is death."

This 2012 re-imagining of Judge Dredd is far beyond its predecessor. Karl Urban of Lord Of The Rings fame plays Dredd, a strictly by the book Judge of the futuristic city "Mega City 1". In the opening scene we are thrust into an intense car chase sequence where Dredd is forced to make on the spot sentences of the criminals he is in pursuit of. This is the power given to Judge's and it's usually death. This immediately gives us not only the tone of the character but of the entire film, desperate, raw, gritty and terribly bloody. Karl Urban's face is hidden in the film by his helmet which stays true to the comics so a lot of his acting comes vocally and through his lower facial structure which can be seen, particularly his mouth.

The central plot revolves around Dredd taking out a rookie on her first day named "Anderson" played by the incredibly sexy Olivia Thirlby who does not don the famous Judge helmet because it would interfere with her psychic abilities, which sounds cheesy but within the realm of the film is perfectly plausible. She's an orphan that was born and raised not far from where a nuclear fallout happened and was thus born with a deformity. These people are called "mutes" in the film, short for mutant. Olivia Thirlby is extremely convincing in her role and totally believable as a strong female character who's able to kick the living shit through anyone that stands in her way.

The unlikely duo are called to "Peach Trees" a shopping mall 200 stories high to investigate a triple homicide of three men thrown from the top floor by the films antagonist "Ma-Ma" played by Lena Headey, who as we all know can play an absolute thunder-cunt in Game Of Thrones. She's the manufacturer of a new drug that's making waves in the city called "SLO-MO" which makes the brain feel as if time is passing at 1% its normal speed. Anderson uses her abilities to obtain this information from their chief suspect so "Ma-Ma" puts a price on the two Judges heads and every gang in the building suddenly has two Judges in their sights. The stage is set "Are you ready rookie? You don't look ready, we're gonna have to go through em".

The look of this film is reminiscent of District 9 but it's a much smaller, intimate film which corrected the mistakes of Sylvester Stallone's Judge Dredd film which was too grand in scale. The acting is particularly impressive for an action film so are the special effects, they are used sparingly however as there are many practical effects. The SLO-MO scenes are amazing, visually stunning but not for the feint of heart. It was the surprise under-dog of 2012, huge critical praise from fans and critics alike but it completely bombed financially which is a real shame because a trilogy was planned. If the DVD sales are big enough the producers have agreed to do a sequel so we can only hope.

Highly recommendable, it's visceral entertainment of the highest order. Kudos to the director Pete Travis for taking advantage of the unique look of South Africa, the cinematography was gorgeous. 8/10