These days violence is everywhere, be it in movies, video games or right outside your living room window if you happen to live in Hull. So it's fair to say that it's hard to really effect an audience, draw them in with a little mindless gun play and pints of fake blood. It has to be crafted, it has to seem necessary and most of all it has to toe the line between being gratuitous and justifiable. It is in this sweet spot that Dredd operates. Is it brutal? Yes. Does it make you cringe at times? Yes. Does it fit the tone, the character, the entire movies focus? Hell yes. You see being an 18 Dredd has the license to push boundaries and be downright bloody, but director Pete Travis seems to have twigged that gore alone doesn't make a film. It can in fact ruin one. So he set out to make a flick that is adult, in keeping with the Judge Dredd universe and doesn't lose itself in the process to childish Saw V antics. Something which could have easily been done with a character like Dredd, a one man wrecking machine with the ability to dole out justice straight into the brain pan of any would be criminal. A Dredd directed by Paul W.S Anderson really.
Smiling's for pussies and criminals.
So it was going to take a pretty stoic and outright badass actor to take on the role of Mega City Ones most unstoppable Judge. Someone like Bruce Willis, Jason Statham or the guy who played the green Power Ranger for instance. They got Karl Urban, and by the end of the movie I could barely comprehend why I would have ever wanted anyone else. Never removing his helmet the entire film it was going to be quite the challenge to portray Dredd as anything but an automaton, maybe packing a few quips but lacking in any real personality. For while not a complicated character to portray in any other action movie, being unable to express yourself with a full set of facial features is one huge handicap. Yet somehow, Urban pulls it off. With a voice that sounds like he chugs gravel like normal men down coffee, a mouth which has never even seen a picture, of a ghost of a smile, and an intimidating screen presence he brings Dredd to life and revels in it. He is the law and I'll be damned if I'm going to disagree.
Judges Dredd and Anderson enforcing the law.
Lena Headey as Ma-Ma: She's a wholesome lady.
Now that we have our enforcer, our title character it was up to writer Alex Garland to put Dredd in just the right situation for his select number of personality traits to shine. There couldn't be a repeat of Stallone's rambling mess or the franchise would never rise again. So enter a rookie Judge (Olivia Thirlby), a drug lord with serious anger management issues (Lena Headey) and 200 levels of degenerate criminal scum and you've got yourself a Judge's worst nightmare. Any Judge that isn't Dredd of course. Even with Olivia Thirlby's trainee Judge Anderson in tow he's a one man army and completely devout in his pursuit of justice, which amounts to some exceptionally cool set piece shoot outs and you leaving the cinema feeling pumped up to the eyeballs with manly testosterone. Anderson, it must be said, acts as a fine counter pose to Urban's slab of concrete emotional dysfunction, bringing a much needed human element to the film. As between Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) and Dredd there are some very extreme and psychotic personas flying about vying for attention, sometimes in the form of mini guns and brutal executions. So it's nice to have Anderson's grounding influence to remind us we haven't strayed into an asylum for gun wielding sociopaths.
Fear not citizens, I'm only out for a jog.
Being a post apocalyptic setting Dredd has to come with a certain desperation, a battle for survival that is defining of the time. In this area Dredd pulls off a more than passable depiction of a world in ruins, of corruption and crime running rampant. Every now and again the sets do seem a bit bear but it fits the aesthetic of the movie and doesn't feel like a cop out on the part of the budget. A few times I was reminded of the original Total Recall by the general murkiness of the world, minus the venerable Shwarzenegger that is. Without a doubt the entire movies success stems from it's serious tone, pulling away from the ridiculous campiness of the original in favour of a grittiness more in keeping with the series.
Coming to a conclusion Dredd is easily my favourite movie of the year, beating out The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises for the top spot. And this is for one simple reason. It achieves everything it sets out to do. There are no moments where I felt the plot, the script or the action had dropped the ball and to me that's just plain impressive. It's boxes of action, violence and comic book loyalty are all neatly ticked. It was tightly executed from beginning to finish and I really hope to see another in the offing, as where else can anyone be both a bit nerdy and bloodthirsty in cinema these days?
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