Review of Dredd (2012) by Brian B — 03 Apr 2017

Dredd is an exciting and fast-paced remake which finally gave the audience the faithful adaptation they deserved. It's not perfect, but it is a huge step up from Judge Dredd (1995).

The future America is a wasteland and a large group of people live in Mega City 1. The police force consists of "Judges" who have the power of a judge, jury, and executioner. Judge Dredd, the ultimate judge, works to take down a drug cartel only to find himself and a rookie he's with trapped inside one of the mega-blocks where they are forced to fight all f the other members of the Ma-Ma clan.

Judge Dredd (1995) was a horrible movie. It was very unfaithful and it made a very poor attempt to parody Dredd. However, Pete Travis decided to make a more faithful adaptation and he succeeded in doing so. Dredd does an amazing job capturing the violence and brutality of its source material.

Usually when a movie has extreme violence, you expect that it will be distractingly violent. However, I didn't feel that way about this movie at all. I never felt that the action sequences in the movie looked ridiculous or overly-fanciful and the movie did not overstay its welcome. With that being said, it's great that the movie was still able to remain very faithful without being distractingly violent at all.

However, this movie is style over substance. It doesn't have too much depth to the characters. However, it did have a little bit of depth to Cassandra Anderson. It showed that this was her last attempt to become a judge as she failed previously. Also, it shows Judge Dredd and her growing to like each other as the movie goes on. However, this still isn't too much character development and the movie is definitely more about its visual effects.

Also, I really enjoyed the slow motion effects. They are really well-done. I'm not going to spoil anything but the slow motion scene at the end is clearly the best one in the film. Because of the effects and music, it is both beautiful and unnerving at the same time. It is definitely one of the more memorable slow motion scenes out there. However, there are also a few other great slow motion scenes in the film which are great too.

In conclusion, this is a phenomenal movie. It proved to be the faithful adaptation that fans were hoping for. It is light on character development but it is definitely a must-see film for its great visuals. It is also not distractingly violent at all and it doesn't get carried away with itself. This is a must-see film for all the people who waited to see a faithful adaptation.