DREDD (2012)
a review by Evan Landon
I think I remember the first Judge Dredd movie starring Sylvester Stallone. It had Rob Schneider in it too, right? I know I saw it, but my memory of everything that happens in the movie is as forgotten as anything that happened in The Transformers movies. Maybe I will go back and watch that one again, maybe write an article or do a podcast. Then again, maybe I won't. I don't know. I do remember that it did suck. That is not the movie we are talking about though.
The movie I am speaking of is a 2012 dystopian action film written by Alex Garland (of Ex Machina & Annihilation fame) and directed by Pete Travis. The original comic strip appeared in the 1977 British periodical “2000AD” which not only launched the career of its creators, but those of acclaimed graphic novelists, Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis. Remember them? Those two fuckers gave birth to such amazing stories, such as Preacher & The Watchmen. Judge Dredd creator, John Wagner, was also on set as a consultant.
Dredd comes at you hard and fast. I dig that. Some movies fuck around with useless exposition and character building, but Dredd gives you no time for that. You are immediately introduced to Karl Urban's new and improved version who is as unapologetic as this script.
Let's get to some FACTS:
Numero Uno: Sly used his Hollywood swag to take over another person's intellectual property for his own efforts.
Numero Dos: We get a second movie that has nothing to do w/ said Sly's film, is that we get a true version of Judge Dredd: a walking, talking version of the acclaimed comic series.
Numero Trio: “I AM THE LAW!”
This is something that happens incredibly subtly, but also consciously without the help of CGI, major corporations resurgences, or even psychic mediums. There is definitely a future that we do not want to understand, but that is our availability as people to band together?
Dredd is a lot like a video game from the 80's where you have to defeat every single boss on your way to the top to achieve a goal. Welp... the only goal here is throwing Cersei Lannister out of a high rise window after she smoked a shitload of crack.
Making $41.5 million against a $45 million budget, unfortunately this one bombed hard enough for them to abandon any possibility of a sequel, but even Karl Urban holds onto hope that they may still be able to get one together some 15 years later. We will just have to wait and see about that.
4 out of 5