Dredd 3D

 

On what seems to be a routine drug bust in the Peach Trees Mega Block, Judge Dredd and his on-assessment Rookie Judge Anderson, find their names on the top of Ma-Ma’s hit list. With the mega block in defcon lockdown, the two judges will be their only back up as they work their way through the swarms of gang members on the hunt for them. Pretty soon they realize, their only way out alive is to go for Ma-Ma herself.

 

My Thoughts:

This movie came out feeling like Art -house-goes-Gorehouse. Most of the 3D sequences feel like someone wanted to make the experience of Slo-mo to feel like a surrealist painting… on high saturation. And while I think the fuzz of this effect was a little eye-bobbling, I liked it as a method of immersing the audience in an aspect of the drug – affecting several sensory reactions.

The judge on judge action – and if you pay attention to the credits, you’ll find its Karl on Karl action – was pretty fun, even though it was hard to keep track of who was who (trying to keep track of that perpetual scowl is a little dizzying).

I’m happy to see that skate culture is still alive and well in the future – though their choice of venue is less than desirable. I have a feeling the conceptual artists looked to the suspended tennis court in Dubai for a large part of their inspiration on that.

The techie (Bill Weasley, anyone?) was an interesting character. His eyes were really cool, though they made mine hurt. And after finding out that Ma-Ma basically tore his previous eyes out, it is an interesting idea that he wouldn’t find a way to ignore some things… I would have felt like his character was more of a victim if he’d tried to ignore the fact that Caleb got nabbed… but someone else points it out and he has to tell Ma-Ma or else look like he was trying to hurt her enterprise.

 

I was not expecting them to show Ma-Ma’s death… the actual moment of impact, I mean. There were a few brief seconds, where I thought they were going to show it from the side, and I honestly questioned how they were going to accomplish that and not make it look incredibly cheesy. The face into the camera choice was a better one, imo, and it lent itself to the general Art/Gore feeling the movie has in general.

And if nothing else… I’m really happy in the upgrade from the previous Dredd uniform. (Cod-pieces should never come back into style. EVER.)

Run Time: 95 minutes