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Author
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Topic: Dredd
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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 10-27-2012 04:46 AM
I suppose I should disclose that I was a 2000AD reader for about 15 years and so I have some quite ingrained preconceptions on the type of character that Judge Dredd is and also the environment in which he lives. But it also gives me the luxury of being able to identify how the movie, Dredd, misses the mark so wildly.
The core problem with the film is that it doesn't feel specifically like a Judge Dredd movie. The acid test here is that if you replaced Dredd and Anderson with any other action star and heroine, would it change the movie in any significant way. And the answer is, no. There is so much more to Dredd's world - and his character for that matter - than is shown here and to make such a star character inconsequential in his own film is pointless; why you may as well just go and make The Raid.
Dredd is an imposing figure, a frightening character whose only consolation to us is that he's on our side. He is Dirty Harry taken to his logical extreme. When faced with a hostage crisis in the films opening sequence, Dredd would not only execute the perp, he'd also likely find a minor infringement to pin on the victim as well. That's Dredd - hard arse, uncompromising, highly principled, stickler for the law; everybody is the same before him. He is both a product, and a creator, of his own environment but Karl Urban's Dredd is almost too soft, both in appearance and in nature, to adequately decribe how this relationship plays out.
Urban looks like a cosplayer at a sci-fi convention rather than the real deal. Stallone is small in stature compared to Urban but, dare I say it, he looked more the part in the 1995 movie. Stallone has the physical build, the jaw, the gnarled face (albeit we saw too much of it) and the voice. On the plus side, Urban does seem to grow into the character by the end, so perhaps he'll look better overall in successive films.
Olivia Thirlby fares better as rookie Psi Judge, Cassandra Anderson. She at least has a back story we can cling to even if she doesn't possess the sass of her printed counterpart.
Dredd's Lawmaster is a major disappointment - it's barely a dressed up Japanese motorcycle. For an example of the kind of thing that does represent the Lawmaster we need look no further than Batman's Batpod; it's rugged, tough, muscular and phat - attributes which describe Dredd's world generally and, indeed, Dredd personally.
The overall tone of the film is right, however - the grime, grit and relentless violence of Megacity One is effectively realised. The bad guys look the part and the head villain, Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), is a well-rounded, idiosyncratic character and suitably ruthless for this universe. It speaks to the movies shortcomings that we know more about Ma-Ma than we do Dredd.
The best thing that can be said about Dredd, though, is that it is a start along the right path but it hasn't made it yet. Hopefully next time there'll be a meatier story to get our teeth into and there'll be more depth to the big man himself. Until then, the most successful adaptation of Judge Dredd to date remains Paul Verhoeven's Robocop, and that's not even a Dredd movie.
6.5 out of 10.
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