Dredd 3D

Rating : 6/10
Release Date : 21st September, 2012
Time : 95 minutes
Director : Pete Travis; Writer : Alex Garland, based on characters by Carlos Ezquerra and John Wagner; Music : Pritam
Starring : Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, Wood Harris

This is a totally different take on Dredd, the earlier character played by Stallone. It has violence, gore, blood, bullets, explosives, all captured in beautiful, slow motion, filmed in extraordinary, three-dimensional, exquisite detail. There is nothing here that is going to blow your mind, pun intended, but its one of the action films that can make for entertaining repeat viewing if you’re a Boys with Toys kind of a guy.

We have a parched, irradiated earth, a wall created to keep nature away, a teeming megacity which holds 800 million people in Central United States of America. We have complete and utter lawlessness in most parts. We have the judges who try and maintain order. We have Judge Dredd, one of the most feared, kick-ass members. We have a rookie judge, who is only borderline fit to become one, and is assigned to Dredd to assess. We have a triple homicide in one the megablocks (200 storeys high, really massive). We have a new drug, Slo-Mo, that slows the brain, makes things seem to happen at 1% of their normal speed. And we have a really bad-ass mafia boss, known by the alias of Ma-ma. When bad-ass meets kick-ass, sparks fly, and well, you can figure out the rest

I enjoyed the psychic angle given to one of the characters. I enjoyed the stunning camera work as you watched human muscle, water, blood, froth, glass and even smoke waft, ripple, shatter, spread or even smear through air or on concrete. I enjoyed the background music and the setting, the central premise. I enjoyed the action.

However, there is no emotion evoked inside you as you leave the hall, no central thought to carry home. Even the characters are not humanized enough, not given the shades of complexity most of us have. The mind is numb at the end, seeking solace in some silence, even, in some parts, trying to forget what it has just seen. Its extremely violent, but stylishly so. Go for it, if that interests you.