Dredd - starring Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby is exactly what everyone hoped it would be. Chiefly, spades of violence and a celebration of heroic fascism. It follows the two street judges - Dredd and Anderson, as they blow their way through a block of flats with a terrifying disregard for the sanctity of life. There isn't much more of a film than that, and let me tell you. It was awesome.
Urban manages to lift Dredd straight from the comics. His voice is low, gravelly, and manages to deliver some hilarious one-liners whilst blowing people up with possibly the most dangerous handgun ever devised. All the while he maintains the 'life is pain' grimace Dredd is known for, which must start to hurt the face muscles after awhile. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, Judge Dredd constantly wears the expression of a father who's baby has just smeared poo all over his new sofa but knows screaming will solve nothing.
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| Man, I am not happy about this. |
Thirlby - better known for her role as 'that other girl in Juno' - plays plucky-sidekick newbie Judge Anderson. Anderson is a psychic judge and general nice character to balance Dredd's badassery. This can sometimes backfire, giving her the look of a lovable puppy that has been strapped into some creaky leather bondage gear by an insane costume designer. Anderson's is on assessment, meaning that she has to prove herself to Dredd, making it almost a 'coming of age' film but with a horrendous amount of flayed people being set on fire. In slow motion.
If there is one criticism you can level at this film, it is the fact that it is a mere 95 minutes of industrial meatgrinder, and would be even shorter than that were it not for every other scene being slowed down to a crawl and then explored in graphic - and I mean graphic - detail. Then again, the entirity of the plot revolves around Judge Dredd killing proles and there is only so much milage you can get out of watching a man's arms fly off in a puff of red smoke. There is also the obligatory sex scene, which since it is hard to shoehorn a sex scene into a film about the coolness of police brutality, takes place entirely within Thirlby's head during a psychic interrogation. It might be the only part of the film that makes you think 'was that really necessary?'
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| I don't wear a helmet 'cuz I'm pretty. |
That aside, Dredd is a particularly enjoyable romp, especially for any psychopaths who wanted to see Lena Headey's face explode in slow motion. I'm going to give it 4/5. It was definately better than average, but my expectations for the film were comprised entirely of heaps of violence and Olivia Thirlby in leather, so I wasn't exactly aiming for the stars in terms of quality.
