Dredd (2012)

I still remembered the awful Judge Dredd (1995) with Sylvester Stallone. So I was kind of suspicious of this film that reminded me a bit of the terrible G.I. Joe saga. In short, I was not ready for Dredd, one of my favorite action films of 2012. In retrospect, I regret that I missed the chance to see it in 3-D in the theaters. In a sort of compensation, the Blu-Ray/DVD pack comes with a nice array of extras that, if you are a little bit like me, you will devour afterwards if you really enjoyed the movie.

Actually, the plot is not very original to say the least: in a futuristic American society characterized by rampant chaos and crime, the policemen have evolved into “judge, jury and executioner” all in one. In one of his missions, Judge Dredd is trapped by a drug-dealing gang inside a mammoth residential building with more than 200 levels and thousands of inhabitants.

The situation reminded me of The Raid: Redemption (2011), an amazing Indonesian film that broke the limits of what you could show in body fight scenes. We do not see those scenes here. What we do find in Dredd is a superb use of the slow-motion tool and a hypnotic soundtrack, both a terrific combination that succeed stylizing and somehow subduing the gory violence of the film.

The arid main character is accompanied by a female rookie officer that adds a very welcomed human touch to the whole thing. Much like any other superhero that upholds “society” values of law and order to the extreme, the almost robotic features of a character like Judge Dredd remind us of the prescience of comics and science fiction imagining an authoritarian model to be implanted in the future, a model that has started to become closer than ever to become a reality since 9/11.

Based on a British comic inspired by fascist iconography, Dredd is not an actor’s vehicle. In fact, Karl Urban as Judge Dredd is covered with a full-size helmet all the time and, at the most, his acting is reduced to mouth gestures of repulsion and loathing. Filmed in South Africa and directed by Pete Travis, Dredd is full of violence but is always surprising and stunning… just the way that a B-Series movie should be.