Movie Review: Dredd
I have some attachment to Judge Dredd. Back when I lived in Germany when I was a kid, I used to skim the Dredd graphic novels in the book store and got very familiar with Dredd, Psy-Judge Anderson and Judge Death (who scared the crap out of me). Course, later we got a Sly Stallone Judge Dredd movie, but it almost felt like a parody of Judge Dredd rather than something that played it straight. Fortunately, Dredd got a second chance to shine.
Dredd (Karl Urban) is asked to take on a new recruit named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) who is on the cusp of becoming a Judge, but because of her special abilities, the Chief Judge wants to know if she can cut it. They respond to a murder in one of the megastructures, which leads them to a drug den. One of the people taken into custody is one of the lieutenants of Ma-Ma's (Lena Headly) drug operation. With security threatened, Ma-Ma wants to make sure the Judges don't leave alive.
The main thing that makes this film work is that they keep it simple. We get the monologue about the world in the beginning, setting up Dredd with his new partner, then we are off into the plot. There is nothing terribly complicated about Dredd: he's the living embodiment of the law of MegaCity 1, and who he is as a person is unimportant. That's why you don't see Dredd without his helmet, in my view. He is the uniform. This is also why the character of Anderson is important as well, she puts a human face on what Dredd does as she navigates the murky world faced by Judges and tries to make the right decisions. The relationship between the two is probably one of the best aspects of the film.
The film isn't perfect. Towards the end the ideas start to run dry as to what kind of roadblocks they can put in front of the judges, but the film doesn't overstay its welcome. While I think the attitude of Dredd hasn't aged well in the day and age when we have an over-armed police force, it is still a pretty good adaptation.
Dredd (Karl Urban) is asked to take on a new recruit named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) who is on the cusp of becoming a Judge, but because of her special abilities, the Chief Judge wants to know if she can cut it. They respond to a murder in one of the megastructures, which leads them to a drug den. One of the people taken into custody is one of the lieutenants of Ma-Ma's (Lena Headly) drug operation. With security threatened, Ma-Ma wants to make sure the Judges don't leave alive.
The main thing that makes this film work is that they keep it simple. We get the monologue about the world in the beginning, setting up Dredd with his new partner, then we are off into the plot. There is nothing terribly complicated about Dredd: he's the living embodiment of the law of MegaCity 1, and who he is as a person is unimportant. That's why you don't see Dredd without his helmet, in my view. He is the uniform. This is also why the character of Anderson is important as well, she puts a human face on what Dredd does as she navigates the murky world faced by Judges and tries to make the right decisions. The relationship between the two is probably one of the best aspects of the film.
The film isn't perfect. Towards the end the ideas start to run dry as to what kind of roadblocks they can put in front of the judges, but the film doesn't overstay its welcome. While I think the attitude of Dredd hasn't aged well in the day and age when we have an over-armed police force, it is still a pretty good adaptation.