Movie review: Dredd 3D

Spoiler alert!

When compared to the three big comic book film releases of this summer, all of which had budgets of over $220 million, Dredd 3D’s reported budget of $45 million seems like a paltry amount. But this film really makes every cent count on screen, enough to stand toe-to-toe with most big budget films.

It is a feat that the always brooding Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) would approve of, because here is a lawman that makes every bullet count and then some.

This blood-soaked sci-fi film isn’t a regular comic adaptation. The film has nicely stylised visuals that give it a very authentic graphic novel feeling, somewhat similar to 300 (2006) and Sin City (2005), making it quite a treat for fans of the genre.

Dredd 3D is set in a thoroughly bleak future where the vast majority of land on earth is an irradiated wasteland. The story takes place in the teeming Mega-City One in North America, where 800 million people live and 17,000 crimes are reported daily. But due to lack of resources, only a handful of the cases are tackled. Those that are tasked with tackling lawbreakers are known as judges, although they also function as executioners and jurors, streamlining the legal processes into a matter of minutes.

The latest threat to Mega-City One comes in the shape of a narcotic, called the “Slo-Mo”, which slows down the perception of time to 1%, effectively making anyone on it feel like they are in a glittery version of The Matrix.

Scenes in Dredd 3D, presented through the eyes of those using Slo-Mo, are absolutely brilliant, combining the psychedelic with the murky. Most of these scenes often end in gratuitous violence, where faces explode, limbs are torn apart, and guts are torn out, yet director Pete Travis manages to make these scenes look gorgeous rather than grotesque.

In Dredd 3D, this narcotic is distributed by former prostitute Ma-Ma. It’s a deliciously wicked performance by Lena Headey, who you may recognise as the evil Cersei Lannister from the hit HBO TV series “Game of Thrones”.

Unknown to the authorities of Mega-City One, Ma-Ma controls a resident tower complex, known as a block, where Judge Dredd comes to investigate a murder alongside a powerful psychic mutant rookie partner Judge Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby). Here things escalate quickly though, due to what I imagine are budgetary constraints, the film never explores much outside of the block itself. That being said, Dredd 3D is full of non-stop action which, backed by a rocking soundtrack, is highly compelling to watch. Things get even more interesting when Ma-Ma traps the two judges in the tower, leaving our heroes with limited resources. At this point, the two engage the gangsters in guerilla warfare, giving the film a very Die Hard (1988) feel.

The film isn’t without fault, however. The narrative isn’t particularly original, resorting to age old clichés like ‘senior cop partnering with young rookie’ and the like. The film is also full of cheesy one-liners, especially those coming from Judge Dredd, who is loaded with short sentences. Fortunately, they are uttered with such earnestness that you can’t help but laugh at the film’s naked embrace of its B-movie roots. Karl Urban is perfect as the deadpan Judge Dredd. He never takes off his helmet (fan boys may rejoice at this point) and fluctuates between varying levels of crankiness. Of course, in such a forbidding future, I suppose some grouchiness is to be expected from a man who lets his gun do the talking.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, September 30^th, 2012.

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