The title is a pun. Let's get that out of the way first, because I know a lot of you will be thinking "That's not how you spell dreading", but there's a very good reason for spelling it that way.
I have a lot of problems with Dredd.
It's starring Karl Urban for one thing, but that's fine by me. I've seen the trailers, and he pulls of the helmet pretty well. Even without those wonderful shoulder pads Dredd wears in the comics, I can see Urban pulling off being Dredd here. It's a punchy action flick which should by rights be a little silly and a bit satirical. And therein lies the problem.
Look at the trailer. It does not scream "this is a bit silly". No; it screams "let's try to be Batman". Let's make this movie darker, edgier and not like the actual hero at all.
I'm not claiming to be an expert on Dredd here - I've read a few of the comics, I have one of the vast Case Files every good bookshop stocks, I've read through all my parents' volumes, heck I've even watched the movie starring Sylvester Stallone, the one spurned and shunned by the hardcore fans. But I'm not a complete Dredd nut, I don't look for rare comics or anything like that. But the Dredd comics always had that undertone - beneath the grime, beneath the murder and theft - of comedy. There was always something a little nonsensical about it, a bit exaggerated. It had action, but it also had a few laughs.
Take, for example, the wonderful Judge Dredd/Batman crossover, Judgement on Gotham. Judge Death and Scarecrow were the villains, and they made a hilarious pair - one an undead psycho bent on destroying humanity, the other a man capable of making our worst fears seem real. On their first meeting Scarecrow sprays Death with his fear serum, and we get a chuckle-worthy glimpse of Judge Death's worst nightmare.
Of course, with Judge Dredd the humour is all very dark anyway - it's a dystopia, you can't have slapstick in there (although you can with The Simp, but that's another story). Judge Dredd's world is much lighter than the world portrayed in the trailer for Dredd. Even with all it's crime, you get the feeling Mega-City One in a happy place. But I don't get that when I see Dredd. All I think when I watch that trailer is "Gotham."
I can forgive the Stallone movie for its essentially making a Judge Stallone movie, because that had Rob Schneider providing a wisecracking, sarcastic foil to Stallone's laconic Dredd. It was a bit silly, just like the comics.
It also featured actual Judge Dredd villains, which brings me onto point number two. I know I'm not a certified film critic, and liking Stallone's Dredd probably doesn't qualify me to comment on the 2012 reboot/remake/call it what you want, at least in the eyes of Dredd fans. But I've read at least a few Dredd comics, and in none of them can I remember a villain called Ma-Ma. In fact, it turns out she hasn't been in one yet. But she will be in August. So that's all right then.
My problem is: why not use one of the actual Dredd villains for this movie? At least the '95 movie had Rico Dredd and the Angel gang. So why not go one better? Why not have Dredd facing off against Judge Death? There's the Juddah, all four of the dark Judges, any number of villains I probably don't know about. But instead they settled on Ma-Ma. And it's grittier and more violent too. Judge Death would be perfect; there's no one more violent than him!
Of course, I'll go and see it anyway, and I'll probably enjoy the sight of a helmeted Karl Urban blowing shit up, but a part of me will always be disappointed that I didn't get to see him and Anderson squaring off against Judge Death on the big screen...
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