When TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY came out it was revered as “the greatest action film of all time” and I'll admit I was one of the films disciples, but then a few years later I got to see what was going on in Hong Kong. Director John Woo changed everything for me, the stunts and images I was seeing in THE KILLER and HARD BOILLED completely floored me! The rest of the 90's I couldn't stand another Hollywood American action movie. It vastly improved around the late 90's early 2000's with films such as THE MATRIX, EQUILIBRIUM, and KILL BILL but the momentum ended with spy thrillers like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and whatchamacallit's like TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.
DREDD 3D is based of off the popular character Judge Dredd from the British comic book anthology 2000 A.D. Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future named Mega City. Judges are vested with the power to arrest, sentence, and even execute criminals on the spot. Joseph Judge Dredd is one of the best and most feared officers.
Dredd is assigned to take rookie Judge Anderson out in the field and evaluate her to see if she has what it takes to be a Judge. They respond to a triple homicide which turns out to be more than they bargained for when Mama the leader of the gang responsible takes siege of the building complex leaving the two Judges alone with no backup facing 50 floors of hell.
Karl Urban (Star Trek, Red, Priest) does an amazing job (as always) playing the title character. He is so bad ass in this! Ive never read a Judge Dredd comic book but I'm almost certain his performance fits the source material 'To a T'. The same goes for Judge Anderson played by Olivia Thirlby (Juno) who's performance made her my favorite character in the film.
The look of the film is just amazing. A lot of visual style all around with tons of action, slo-mo, and 3D. Major kudos to the director and screenwriter for making the slow motion have purpose. I am sick and tired of 'cool' slow motion action scenes just for the sake of making something happening on screen seem more awesome. Here the slo-mo actually serves a purpose with having a drug that Mama's gang manufactures and distributes that makes the user high as a kite while also experiencing everything in slow motion. Cheep parlor trick for the 3D action but clever and entertaining to say the least.
I want more DREDD 3D films, more importantly I want more action films like this to come out of Hollywood!
Highly recommended for action film fans and comic book movie fans. I even recommend seeing it in 3D which is a format I rarely show love for.
1 comment:
The cast is good and the action is inspired, and I think that’s where Dredd stands above all of the other remakes that continue to get churned out almost every month. Nice review Caleb.
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