Dredd
Perhaps there is no other comic book superhero who is as audacious and controversial as one Judge Joseph Dredd, a postapocalyptic stormtrooper all-in-one law enforcement officer who has a penchant for summary executions of petty criminals, many of whom have just surrendered. Nonetheless, he became one of the most iconic comic book heroes garnering a long standing cult following since the early 1970s. The 1990s saw the release of the first adaptation of the character starring Sylvester Stallone in the title role. And Stallone did not do too bad in the part bringing his usual testosterone filled charisma to the table and engaging in a rivalry with the Dredd character’s all time archnemesis Rico AKA his twin clone brother played by Armand Assante. The Stallone film was considered to be a bit of a closer look at the Dredd character himself, establishing back story, character development and motivation, but in doing so committed a heinous crime as far as the original old school fans were concerned, since they had DREDD ACTUALLY REMOVE HIS HELMET. DREDD NEVER REMOVES HIS HELMET. Stallone defended the call, saying that having the lead character never show his entire face through the whole movie was unrealistic, but the die was already cast: Stallone’s Dredd movie was one of the worst ever (but remains very popular with action fans) as the comic book minority fanbase dug in their heels and awaited the next attempt to do their favorite justice. And in 2012, they finally got it, albeit with Karl Urban in the Dredd role, never taking the helmet off but still clearly lacking both Stallone’s presence and charisma even as he applies the ongoing scowl and Eastwood delivery (no surprise since the Dredd character was directly inspired by Dirty Harry) but mainly it proves that almost anybody can play the Dredd character provided that they move around well in the uniform. Like the Stallone version, this was a troubled production, with many disputing who in fact had directed the movie along with a pretty bad box office performance shutting down all talk of continuing the franchise any further, although the plot here resembles a nice presentation of “just another day at the office” for Dredd and mostly consists of an ongoing siege at a self contained (and self dependent) giant highrise skyscraper, home to some unfortunate souls and the building’s Absolute Leader played by Lena Headey, a ruthless and feared gang leader and budding drug lord who has invented and distributes a mind altering substance called SloMo, which when used properly slows the perception of one’s consciousness down to a literal crawl, something which can be either a blessing or a curse depending on things like when Headey’s MaMa shoots three enemy combatants up with the substance and then throws them off the balcony, turning their long ride down into a 40 minute rollercoaster of complete terror. Headey plays it pretty edgy and cool, an original villain with a fresh backstory (ex hooker who had castrated her pimp and then moved on to take over an entire crime syndicate) who also turns out to be a key strategist during her battle of wits with Dredd, locking him down every chance she gets and then even calling in some corrupt judges who expect a $1 million payday to murder one of their own even as Dredd treats them to painful, gruesome deaths for their treason (keep in mind that the entire structure of this future world is based on the evaporation of due process). The whole time, Headey grieves at the loss of her own people and even launches an insane artillery assault that kills scores of people but not Dredd. Certainly an underrated villain and one who would have looked good matching wits with someone like Robocop (which was also heavily inspired by the Dredd comic). After the opening scene where Dredd blows a hostage taker’s head apart, we learn that he is being assigned a new partner, a pretty little blonde (Olivia Thirlby) whom we are told failed all of her exams but is being accepted anyway because of her (alleged) extraordinary psychic abilities, sent along with Dredd to Headey’s apartment complex where we learn that she can enter people’s heads and retrieve information without the use of interrogation techniques, but as the film goes on, this new character becomes such a featured player (not wearing a helmet because it disrupts her psychic abilities) that it almost starts to feel like she’s the star of the whole show and it’s really Dredd who’s a sidekick instead. That starts to change in the last 20 minutes when Judge Psychic Girl is captured and Dredd sends the word to Headey that the death sentence has already been given to her and will be carried out when he finds her giving Dredd a strong, final buildup for the finish. With its 3D veneer, the film does feature some truly impressive psychedelic visuals and the set design for the skyscraper / live in community is fun to watch as well, even having real life fast food franchise chains set up and doing business there. And Urban? He would go on his merry way to play Bones McCoy and many others even as Stallone (who was still doing Expendables movies during this time) could just as easily have strapped the helmet back on (and kept it on) and used stunt doubles and CGI to sell the rest of it and the movie would have been all the better off (the trend of recasting franchise characters sometimes goes to ridiculous extremes anyway) since Urban’s version gets almost no development whatsoever and the script even glosses over the critical details of the future / alternate world we’re watching, in some ways making it essential for the non comic book fan to actually have to watch the Stallone version first in order to get more acclimated to this environment since this one flies almost immediately into the action and expects the viewer to already know exactly what is going on, ironic to those who consider this a stand alone and worst for the actor who has to replace Sly in what is basically the role of a fascist agent of oppression, given just the right amount of pixie dust to tenderize him on the side of good so that the comic book crowd can have another hero to look up to who doesn’t really exist…
7/10