Something Blu--Dredd

If the Amazon customer reviews are any indication, the 1995 film version of “Judge Dredd” starring Sylvester Stallone is a five-star film.  With 102 viewers giving it a five-star rating and only 23 giving it a one-star it must be more amazing than I remember.  Either that or nobody really took the time to devote words of hate to this epic fail at the box-office of a movie.  I do remember seeing it at the theater when it was released, back when I was trying to watch anything and everything.  I committed very little of it to memory.  I remember Armand Assante and Stallone both had the same chin, and Rob Schneider added nothing but shame to the Dredd name.  This 2012 version of “Dredd” is a hard “R” violent, tough, and entertaining B-movie with a better Dredd and better story from the 90’s version, even if the story is the same as “The Raid: Redemption” which was released a year earlier.

Karl Urban (Star Trek) is Judge Dredd a judge, jury, and executioner in a future police state where he and his fellow judges are the law.  Dredd is saddled with Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) a trainee with psychic abilities.  Together they answer a homicide call at a building run by local gang boss Ma-Ma (Lena Heady) who is manufacturing and selling the latest drug to hit the streets ‘Slo-Mo’.  When Dredd and his trainee get to close to Ma-Ma’s operation, they are trapped in the building and hunted by the gang as well as the tenants.  Then it’s one shoot-out after another filled with brutal kills and really great looking shots in slo-mo that show the impact of both bullets and explosions.  The story is easy to follow and a might predictable, but doesn’t take away the enjoyment of what a good action movie should give you.

Urban is spot-on as Dredd, for one and almost most importantly for comic-book continuity’s sake he leaves his helmet on for the majority of the film.  So the entire time you buy him as Dredd.  He’s gruff and hard as nails tough.  Thirlby is pretty basic as Anderson, she’s essentially a mutant, so if you’ve seen any “X-Men” movie, you know how she is treated by the people around her.  She clearly doesn’t struggle with her power, just with the fact that people think she’s a freak.  My favorite moment with her is where you get that typical moment of her decisions as a Judge and how they affect others.  However the filmmakers don’t harp on it, they just show it as part of the job and never mention it again.  Everything else is Action Movie 101, the battles get bigger and crazier, the big showdown happens and goes about like you’d expect.  And in the end “Dredd” becomes a decent entry into the action genre, and an even better one into the comic-book movie genre.  All of it done without guys in capes and superpowers.

--Robert L. Castillo