Review of Dredd (2012) by Wade H — 07 Aug 2014

(75%).

A movie worthy of the character, filled with action, and a surprising amount of quite brilliant visual effects that sadly hardly anyone went to see when it hit cinemas, which was partly the studios fault as they limited 2D screenings. And that's besides the fact that I thought it worked quite well as a 3D movie, better than many others anyway. Unlike most comic book movies this isn't 3 hours and 45 minutes long, the budget isn't $300 million, and this doesn't have a watered down PG-13 rating, which maybe explains why it lost money, but it's still a damn good action flick. It does have similarities with the Raid, and that's fine by me because the Raid was also one of the better movies of that year, so who cares? Urban makes for a great Dredd as he pouts his lips in almost comical fashion throughout, and Olivia Thirlby's rookie character thankfully isn't utterly useless, yet still very much a vulnerable person trapped within this futuristic crime-ridden hell-hole. There's an element of the first two Robocop movies, with the future drugs and the violent gangs, and maybe there isn't quite so much depth here, but this is still a simple, very entertaining 90 min B-movie that I hope gets a decent sequel because it deserves one.