Dredd [Blu-ray]

There was a time that I thought that no movie based on a comic book could be better than The Dark Knight. But then, this past summer, I saw The Avengers, and I had a new faith in comic book adaptations. I hoped to be wowed yet again only a couple of months later with The Dark Knight Rises, but it turns out I couldn?t really stand that movie, and it looked like Marvel had overtaken DC with the best comic book movie ever. But then, a flick that no one even bothered to see?and a reimagining, at that?came out a few months later that made me change my mind yet again. And that movie is Dredd. All hail the new king of comic book cinema!

The Movie:

Dredd is the greatest comic book movie I?ve ever seen. Here?s why: Judge Joseph Dredd is just an ordinary man who stands by his principles, and that?s it. He doesn?t have a bazillion dollars and a utility belt like Batman. He doesn?t have superpowers or a suit of mechanized death like Iron Man. He doesn?t have anything but his adherence to the law. So much so that when he says, ?Ma-Ma?s not the law. I am the law,? in this picture, you believe it, and you can see that his soon-to-be-victims believe it, too. The audience, just like the criminals, is left with a man who, against all odds, stands against the scum and takes back the streets, if only in just one area of a crime-ridden city. He?s like Travis Bickel or Dirty Harry, but set in a fantasy world of intense crime and violence filled with a new street drug called Slo-Mo. What?s not to love?

Well, apparently a lot, since nobody bothered to see this movie back when it hit theaters. I think a big reason for that is because of the stain the original Judge Dredd left on the name of the character. Being one in probably only ten people who liked the original movie though, I can mildly understand. Most people don?t fully understand that the Judge Dredd from the first movie is not the same Dredd that Karl Urban is portraying, here. This Dredd is much closer to the character in the British comic 2000 A.D., and since Judge Dredd isn?t a household name like Batman or Superman, most folks don?t know how great an ultraviolent picture could be with a very serious Dredd in it, which is what Dredd is. In fact, it?s probably the most badass comic book adaptation ever made. If you like gritty films with morally ambiguous protagonists, then you need to see this movie. It?s one of the best.

The primary reason for its greatness is Karl Urban?s portrayal of Dredd, which is spot on. He plays Dredd gruffly throughout the entire film. He has no character growth whatsoever, much like Dredd in the comics. And instead, it?s the world around him that changes because he?s in it, which is a unique approach to storytelling, but one that pays off big time in this film. His rookie sidekick, Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), also changes, making for an interesting team dynamic. The law is unflinching, and as established earlier, Dredd is the law.

The setting primarily takes place in a single building located in Mega City One called Peace Trees, which is another key to this film?s success?it stays grounded. Dredd?s fight to the top of the building is a scenario that was also used effectively in last year?s The Raid: Redemption, but I think it?s more effective here, and surprisingly, more realistic (Come on, you?re going to tell me that everybody in that building knew martial arts in The Raid?). With Slo-Mo, on the streets, Dredd is sent to investigate some murders and finds that the main source of the drug is in Peach Trees. He finds the drug runner to be a ruthless boss called, ?Ma-Ma? (Lena Headey). It?s refreshing to have a female antagonist.

I don?t have a single complaint with this film, other than the fact the humor found within the comic is all but absent in the film. That said, the pacing is great, the acting is phenomenal, and the slow-motion special effects are beautiful and stylistic. See this picture now, and give Dredd the audience that it?s deserved all along.

The Disc:

The special features in Dredd are many, but most are very short. ?Mega-City Masters: 35 Years of Judge Dredd? featurette is one of the longer extras. It features the creators of the comic and subsequent artists and writers discussing the history of Dredd. If you know nothing about the character, than this is a good place to start. ?Day of Chaos: The Visual Effects of Dredd 3D? featurette is an interesting look at the 3D effects that went into the film, and also the limited computer effects. The film was shot in Cape Town, Johannesburg and very few added effects were even put into the film digitally. It?s kind of sad to see that only a few buildings needed to be included to make parts of Johannesburg look like a post-Apocalyptic wasteland.

Those are the longer features. The rest are much shorter. There?s a ?Dredd? featurette that actually features Karl Urban talking about the character, but that segment is only a couple of minutes long. Another short segment is the ?Dredd?s Gear? featurette that talks about his outfit in the film. ?The 3rd Dimension? featurette goes into detail about how cumbersome the technology could be, so they had to build new cameras. It?s fascinating stuff. ?Welcome to Peach Trees? goes into the primary location of the film. Finally, besides the trailer, there?s the ?Dredd Motion Comic Prequel.? It goes into the character of Ma-Ma, but the movie fully describes her history anyway, so it?s a nice feature, but it?s totally unnecessary.

Overall, the special features are good, but some are too short and I really missed a commentary track. Honestly, I can?t get enough of Dredd. This disc is lacking a bit, but as a whole, it?s excellent. Pick it up.

Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris, Lena HeadeyProduced by: Alex Garland, Andrew MacDonald, Allon Reich

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Dredd

Setting an action film within a contained space is an excellent way to keep it tight and thrilling, but it's also a risk, since the formula has been done well so many times-- Die Hard set the standard, and films as recent as this year's The Raid have improved upon it. And it's doubly risky in a film like Dredd, which establishes the parameters of a harsh dystopian future in quick voiceover, but then limits the film almost entirely within an apartment mega-plex, which aside from a few technological innovations could pretty much exist today. You're swept into a fascinating future, only to be trapped in a tiny corner of it for an entire film; how is that going to be worth it?

Dredd, an adaptation of the comic books that's miles away from the 1995 Sylvester Stallone attempt, sets itself apart by knowing its strengths and playing to them, over and over again. Screenwriter Alex Garland (of Danny Boyle dystopias 28 Days Later and Sunshine), crafts a dead simple narrative about Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) and his psychic sidekick Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) needing to get to the top floor of a 200-story apartment complex to take out the vicious prostitute-turned-drug-kinpin Mama (Lena Headey). From there director Pete Travis follows our heroes through hails of gunfire with a clear eye for the geography of the building, while also adding in the film's great stylistic flourish-- Mama handles a drug called "slo-mo," which slows down perception to 1% of normal speed, and you'd better believe we see a lot of "slo-mo" vision. At times it makes Dredd look like a Zack Snyder knock-off, but it's also a gaudy and enjoyable break from this grim future-- especially when it highlights the film's favorite method of death, people falling from great heights to a splattery, gory death.

The movie goes very, very hard on the blood and guts, and there's plenty to find in a story where the Judges have guns that don't just shoot bullets, but grenades and fireballs and all kinds of goodies. Dredd can feel unrelenting at times, especially when a gory scene leads straight into a psychologically intense one, like when Anderson infiltrates the mind of a perp (The Wire's Wood Harris) only to find a lot of disturbing sexual depravity. And when your hero is equipped with a gun and rarely fights hand-to-hand, the action can feel a little redundant-- Travis doesn't really take advantage of all the potential of a chase in this kind of confined space, and when Dredd runs out of bullets, you feel less tension than a sense that maybe he wasn't all that great of a hero to begin with.

To Dredd's credit, though, he's played through a somewhat miraculous feat of acting by Urban, whose eyes are masked beneath a helmet the entire film and who speaks in a gruff monotone, but who conveys a world of emotion all the same. Dredd really shouldn't be an engaging character, but his commitment to justice and his growing affection for protege Anderson make him remarkably likable. Olivia Thirlby almost has the harder job, acting like an all-knowing psychic, and with her face fully exposed to show emotions enough for two people. The sassy friend from Juno translates remarkably well into a pint-sized badass, and with a promising dystopia lurking outside the walls of this movie, it's easy to imagine following both of them into further adventures. And though Headey has established herself as one memorable sociopath, Cersei Lannister on Game of Thrones, she takes it 10 steps further as Mama, a scarred and endlessly manipulative woman pulling all the strings from the top of her grimy tower.

With style and dour charisma to spare, Dredd proves that the smartest way to handle an action plot is often the simplest, while also tossing in enough flash to set itself apart. It didn't have quite enough fun with its ideas and location as I'd hoped for, but it's got plenty of strong raw material to get it to the finish line-- if this is the next evolution of the Die Hard formula, John McClane would probably feel exhausted by the darkness but also a little proud.

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Judge Dredd [Blu-Ray]

You might not read my reviews regularly, but if you did, then you?d know that Judge Dredd is my kind of movie. I loved it back when I first saw it in the theaters with my dad, and I still love it today. I am?THE LAW!

The Movie:

The Sylvester Stallone vehicle, Judge Dredd, is a much-maligned comic book movie from the 90s, and I never understood why. It?s loud, it?s exciting, and it?s even funny (Yes, Rob Schneider can actually be funny in the right situation!). One of the major complaints is that, oh, wah wah wah, Judge Dredd rarely ever takes off his helmet in the comics, wah, wah, wah. As if you even knew that before this movie came out and somebody told you that fact. And secondly, Spider-Man never shot webs out of his skin, either, but THAT happened in Sam Raimi?s trilogy, which was still widely loved by most fans and newcomers alike. So what?s the deal?

My theory? The unfamiliarity of the character, plus the R rating, and the overall hamminess of it (oh, and Rob Schneider), equals a critical and commercial failure. It?s not like Judge Dredd is an unknown character or anything like that. His 2000 A.D. series is quite famous in the pantheon of comic books, but no one would mistake him for the popularity of Batman or The X-Men. He suffers the same fate as somebody like Jonah Hex, even though that movie was lousy and this one isn?t. People just couldn?t get into the character. At least, that?s what I think.

The film stars Sylvester Stallone in a role that could have just as easily gone to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He plays a cop with adamant beliefs in the law, and acts as judge, jury, and executioner, all wrapped into one glorious piece of beef. He does his job better than anyone else ever could, but things go awry when he?s framed for murder and is sent into exile (with Rob Schneider). What follows is his ascent back to glory as he seeks out the culprit, who is played with hilarious bombast by Armand Assante. One of my favorite moments from Assante occurs when he curls up his lip like Stallone and spouts, ?Leeeeaawwww!? Just watch the movie, and I?m sure you?ll also find this funny.

And that?s why I love this film. It?s so fun to make fun of but genuinely enjoyable to watch, too. Sure, none of the actors take themselves too seriously, but that?s what?s great about it. It feels like a joke, and it is, but it?s also immensely entertaining, just like a dumb action picture should be. I?m not going to compare it to something as classic as say, Commando, which I consider the comic gem of action pictures. But I will say that, all the way through, while I?m laughing at its ridiculousness, I?m also enjoying the special affects, gunfire, and one-liners (?I knew you?d say that?) that this film has to offer. It seriously never lets up, but in a strangely, not-too-violent fashion. Like I mentioned earlier, the movie is rated-R and it really never should have been. Even back then it was tame, and by today?s standards, it?d be downright be PG-13?which is another reason why people might hate it so much. It seems pretty kid-friendly, and almost entirely directed toward teenagers, while people probably expected a bloodbath. Well, that never bothered me, and I liked the film for what it was?A goofy, explosive action flick. I loved it back then, and I still love it today. Long live, Judge Dredd!

The Disc:

Okay, no effort whatsoever went into this Blu-Ray disc. I actually never had this movie on DVD, but if I did, I?m sure I?d have the same special feature in, ?Stallone?s Law: The Making of Judge Dredd,? as it was obviously made make in the 90s. Stallone hasn?t looked so young in years.

It?s enjoyable, to say the least. Stallone hams it up and continues to do that weird curve thing with his lip while he discusses how hard it was to make the film, while the other actors talk up their characters and the movie. It?s all pretty interesting stuff and I enjoyed watching it and learning about the special effects (this is back in the day when people actually worked their asses off to make something look futuristic and real), but really, I wanted something more. Perhaps, an in-depth look at the series in preparation for the new Dredd that comes out pretty soon? Or maybe an, ?In Defense of Dredd? featurette, or something like that, since this new Dredd looks like it was pretty much just created to wash out the bad taste that the original movie made with the general public. Or maybe, I don?t know, a commentary by the director or writer. Anything, really, other than that one special feature, as the only other extra on this disc is the trailer, which is badass and all, but I wanted more.

Overall, it?s a really crummy disc for special features, and if you already own Judge Dredd on DVD, then you can skip the Blu-Ray upgrade entirely. It doesn?t even look that crisp or new. So, this is a great movie, but lousy with special features. That?s pretty much Judge Dredd on Blu-Ray in a nutshell.

Distributor: Hollywood PicturesStarring: Slyvester Stallone, Armand Assante, Diane Lane, Rob Schneider, Max Von SydowProduced by: Charles Lippincott, Beau E.L. MarksWritten by: William Wisher, Jr., Steven E. de Souza

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