Seventeen years ago, movie goers were first exposed to the wildly famous British “superhero” Judge Dredd in the form of a movie adaptation starring Sylvester Stallone, Diane Lane, and Rob Schneider’s screeching voice. Critically reviled, Judge Dredd was silently sweeped under the carpet and many people tried to forget the cinematic abomination they kept wishing they could unsee. That majority of people, however, did not include the folks at Lionsgate who commissioned Pete Travis to bring The Law back to the big screen in their reboot: Dredd. While anyone else could have simply cranked out a generic action film, Pete Travis had a vision. A vision that resulted in not just one of the most fantastically shot films of the year, but also one of the goddamn craziest.
At first glance Dredd does seem like a boring generic action film. In fact, the premise sounds downright tedious, with the main conflict of the plot consisting of Dredd and rookie Judge Anderson fighting their way through a locked down apartment building to get to the penthouse suite of a crime boss named Mama. As boring as it may seem to just watch Dredd and company shoot their way through an apartment building for an hour and a half, the creators of the film make up for the seemingly boring premise by presenting some of the most visually impressive fight scenes and gloriously cheesy one-liners in recent cinematic memory. One plot element concerns the distribution of a drug called “slo-mo” which causes the user to experience life in slow motion. As ridiculous as that idea may be, it leads to some fantastic scenes that take place from the point of view of the junkies. Think about it: this film has a reason within the plot for the fight scenes to be in slow motion. That’s ingenious!
And indeed, the fight scenes and their special effects are incredible. One scene in particular that utilizes the slo-mo concept to its full effect, concerns Dredd shooting up some junkies in normal time while the perspective shifts between the gunshots to the junkies having their cheeks blown out at one percent the normal speed of time. If you’re a fan of gore and guts you won’t be disssapointed, as this film doesn’t just shy away from violence, but shows you the exploding faces and smashed brains. Dredd has the greatest face melt in film since Raiders of the Lost Ark, a face melt that coincided with another important realization.
This movie is goddamn insane. As I mentioned before, the special effects and cinematography are incredible; however, this movie’s plot could not care less whether or not any of it makes sense to you. It’s the type of unlogic that doesn’t make you feel lost and confused like in the Transformers franchise, but that wonderful type that makes your brain try to understand that you’re watching a movie where Dredd calls someone a “hotshot” and then melts off their face. After that, or a myriad of other incredibly crazy scenes, your mind will finally shut down before exploding and accepting the glory in front of it. I would go on to list some more crazy moments from Dredd, but this movie’s insanity is something that must be experienced firsthand. To give a frame of reference for what watching this film is like: it’s that panel of Judge Dredd punching a guy though his skull while screaming “GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD!!!” for an hour and a half.
In terms of plot, Dredd isn’t necessarily breaking any new ground. Cinematically, however, it’s an excellent movie to just sit back, switch off your mind, and be taken by the chaotic beautiful mess that is Dredd. The performances are all great and Karl Urban does an excellent job as the lower half of Dredd’s face. Dredd may not be the movie you want to show to friends to prove that comics can be a sophisticated art form, but it is the movie you want to show to friends so you can all have your minds blown away in a whirling storm of madness.
