Review of Dredd (2012) by Trevor L — 14 Nov 2013

One line summary: Celebrates a fascist police state, and to a lesser extent, drug use.

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Judge Dredd is forced to take the mutant psychic Cassandra Anderson under his wing.

Dredd and Anderson go after the drug kingpin Ma Ma.

There was resistance.

Later on, four other judges betray Dredd and Anderson for money.

Can Dredd and Anderson prevail, even using every single talent they have as a team?

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Cinematography: 8/10 Some of this is spectacular. The camera work is excellent early on, as is the matching of CGI to real world photography. The steam punk sets were not as good.

Sound: 10/10 Fine.

Acting: 0/10 This is a cartoon set to live action format. What acting? I usually like Karl Urban's performances, but I could not tell that he was even in this film.

Screenplay: 4/10 Even more stupid than the first film. In case of a nuclear war, the first area in the USA to be turned into radioactive slag is the mega city that stretches from DC to Boston. This inverts it, which makes no sense. Unfortunately, the whole plot depends on this. Further, no one grows food, anywhere, and yet there is enormous wealth and huge numbers of people. This cannot happen. There is no place to mine metal and materials for concrete, yet there are all these huge buildings (to house 800 million people) made of metal and concrete. This is impossible. The story, given these mortal wounds in logic, moves along fine, as any simple-minded cartoon will.

Special Effects: 8/10 Mostly impressive.