Dredd 3D

One of my favorite things to do at the movies is to look at the awful previews of the movies to come. And with each preview my dork friend and I give a thumbs up or thumbs down to each one as they finish while chuckling or saying something snarky. Well at the end of Dredd 3D we both gave an emphatic thumbs down because it looked like a knock off of The Raid with terrible one liner jokes thrown in. Plus, were people really clamoring for a Dredd remake? The first one was bad enough with Sly Stallone and the stupid fumble rooski dude from SNL. Although his movie The Animal might have been the best movie that came out that year with Gladiator and Chocolat coming in at a close second and third.
http://onlyfreshness.blogspot.com/2012/04/raid-redemption.html

The problem with Dredd 3D is that it’s a cult comic and you hardly see the hero’s face. So it makes it hard to cast a Gerard Butler or Brad Pitt to play this role because they’re wearing a helmet the entire time. So we end up with Karl Urban, who is a fine actor but he’s not a big enough draw to bring in the random girl who sits in the cube next to you, or for you to give up a night of getting laid to see dudes shoot other dudes in slow motion. This is why it bombed at the box office despite getting good reviews. I clearly was not getting laid this night so I decided to give it a try. Plus I could at least get some material to um dream about by seeing the tasty Olivia Thirlby in 3D.

First, I have to say that this movie is worth seeing in 3D. The opening shot of these thugs getting high off of one the coolest drugs created for a movie called Slow Mo and killing random people as they drive recklessly throughout this post-apocalyptic town draws you right in and you immediately feel like it’s money well spent.  You are then introduced to the latest version of Judge Dredd who chases them down and kills them with his awesome gun. Video gamers will love this as he has different types of ammunition loaded in it and each one has its own cool factor that it brings to the movie. This isn’t the only cool gun you are treated to as the head bad guy played by The Sarah Chronicle’s Headey, lines up a few mini guns to basically destroy this entire floor of a high rise building while trying to kill Dredd and his rookie judge Anderson, played by Thirlby. 

The plot is pretty basic. The world is reduced to these huge blocks of overcrowded cities because there isn’t much inhabitable land left. But because of this population control issue, the cities are overrun with crime and drug lords who basically run the towns.  The cities try to combat this by releasing their own form of police in the way of Judges, who can administer justice on the spot.  The director takes us to the first day on the job for hopeful judge; Anderson who has this special gift that they believe will come in handy. She has the ability to not only read minds but she can also manipulate them. This leads to some pretty cool scenes with her and Avion Barksdale from The Wire.  Anyway, Dredd and Anderson answer a call to the tower that Headey runs and they are eventually locked in and trapped in the building. This leads to Anderson having to grow up on the job rather quickly as it’s just the two of them versus a tower full of gang members looking to kill them. 

That’s pretty much it and I like that they kept it basic because it allowed them to focus more on cool shoot out scenes and less on an unnecessary backstory for Dredd, in which there was none.  Also every scene that involved Slow Mo is incredible mainly because they actually shot this in 3D and didn’t pull off the lame trick of filming in 2D and then converting a few scenes to 3D just to make more money. The only real issue I had with this movie, outside of them using a body double for Thirlby’s nude scene, was that Headley was the main bad guy. If I want to see 95 pound apathetic scarred up women on drugs, I’d go to a Fiona Apple show. “This world is bullshit!” Outside of that, please don’t put them on screen as drug lords. No real criminal is going to follow the lead of some female base head. So this fact alone made the final fight scene pretty lame because there was absolutely nothing special or cool about her character. But don’t let this keep you from seeing the movie because after having a few days to marinate on it, I’ve decided to rate this movie as slightly FRESH!