Review Tuesday: DREDD 3D

From no where DREDD 3D appeared. After the Stallone fiasco with Judge Dredd years ago, no one expected Hollywood to touch the property again, but it happened.

In a post-apocalyptic world, the US is reduced to a handful of Mega-Cities. To speed up the legal process a policing force of JUDGES enforce the law. One Judge will, on the spot, be Judge, Jury, and if it fits the crime, Executioner. Judge Dredd is a no nonsense lawman with rookie Judge Anderson investigating a triple homicide on a "block" that's been overrun by the Ma-Ma gang. Ma-Ma is the source of the new illegal drug Slo-Mo, a narcotic that makes everything seem to slow down.

The movie is about 1.5 hours of adventure, action, and extreme violence as our heroes try to uphold the law while trying to stay alive while being hunted by Ma-Ma's gang. Unlike the previous Dredd flick, the main man NEVER takes off his helmet and stays in the comic book character throughout the ENTIRE movie. Also keeping close to the comic books, this movie is ULTRA-VIOLENT. In fact, it was shockingly violent, to the point that you wonder how it got away with an R rating!

Karl Urban, while not my first choice to play the lead role was an EXCELLENT Judge Dredd. He scowled through the entire movie and it's refreshing when an actor has enough self-assuredness to be able to go an entire movie without showing his face. Olivia Thirlby did a great job as Judge Anderson despite looking like Lady Gaga. Lena Headley was a perfect cartoonish violent crime boss.

Did this need to be in 3D? No. However I was glad that the movie had a good story and didn't suffer BECAUSE of the 3D, like so many other flicks in this genre. It was a LOT of fun to watch, and was very well made. Since the end of the Cold War, these dreary post-nuclear holocaust genre films are a dying breed. It's hardly a fear, but when Judge Dredd was first drawn up, in the 80s, it looked like a real possibility. So, the end of the world, in a way, was refreshing and nostalgic. I liked the way they made the Judge uniforms looks more realistic, yet, keeping the finer points from the comic books: the uniform looked like tough body armor, but they still had the helmets and the badges. I was a little disappointed the "law-giver" (aka, the GUN!) was smaller and hardly mentioned. It still packed a punch! While Dredd was terrifying to behold, Anderson was strangely sexy, just like in the books.

Unfortunately, this movie didn't drum up much support and will officially be considered a bust, costing $50 mill but bringing in under $13 mill. I imagine that DVD and Blue-Ray sales will bring up the bottom line but probably not enough to see future installments in this franchise.

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