Dredd

Dredd (2012)

Image From IMDB

Karl Urban ripping up a building full of scumbags while delivering solid one liners in a gruff voice and looking absolutely badass as the gore flies across the screen, sometimes in super-slow-motion… that alone is enough to watch this fantastic movie, but Dredd offers plenty more than just its lead character, despite its simplistic A to B plot.

Dredd (Urban) and his new rookie Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) are called to investigate multiple homicides in a Mega Tower but there’s soon plenty more bodies as the case grows and they go looking for the infamous Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) and her entire drug operation while the building’s on lockdown and everyone is trying to kill them.

It’s a great concept––similar to the fantastic The Raid which came out a year earlier––but this time there’s more Karl Urban and its written by the always great––except 28 Days Later, but that’s probably considered a hot take––Alex Garland. Mega City looks incredibly, everything is dirty and grimy, the drug is an excuse to use new high speed camera technology, and its a solid R-Rated movie not even remotely trying to pander to four quadrants.

The tone of the movie is perfect, and the style suits the story and characters. The world building starts instantly and doesn’t let up. Mega City One is a dystopian corrupt future where life is cheap, violences is everywhere, and the law has their work cut out for them. We see that even the Judges look down on poverty at times, and can be brought. It’s a future where everything really has gone horribly wrong, and humanity is at its worst.

But, we’re still on the Judges side through-out the insane action and aggressive ascent up the tower. Judge Dredd is just too cool not to like, and Anderson is wide-eyed and naive enough that we want her to be ok and keep some of what makes her, her––an increasingly difficult task when you’re left with no choice but to kill hundreds of lowlifes.

Their relationship offers the only heart we’re going to see in this down-beaten morally bankrupt world. And, while we want them to reach the top and kill Ma-Ma, as she really is bat shit crazy, what we want most from the story is the two heroes to survive.

The limited dialogue is fantastic. The colours and grading almost feel unique for the dystopian action genre. The performances through-out are exactly what they need to be, and the action is badass. It’s one of the those movies that’s over within a flash and you’ve smiled the whole time.

Karl Urban is the standout performer and this movie should have been the start of a big franchise for him. Unfortunately, box-office rules over quality so we never got that. But, Pete Travis and Alex Garland’s Dredd is a great movie and infinitely rewatchable, so at least we can take plenty of nasty blood-soaked trips back to Mega City One and re-enjoy the carnage of a day in the life of Dredd.