Dreddhead

It's been more than two months since I posted here. Yay me. -.-

I'm not here to complain about that - I'm not trying to write some shitty Oh-woe-is-me emo blog here. If the title didn't tip you off, I'll spell it out in black and white for you: I'm going to talk about Dredd.


I talked in one post about my fears regarding this movie: how I was worried they were making Dredd into Batman, how I didn't like that they weren't using an established villain, how it seemed too dark for Judge Dredd.

Well I'd just like to apologise; it turns out they pitched it perfectly.

First, the Batman-like aspects of it. Yes, it looked dark and gritty and very Batman, but Karl Urban's judge never feels like that sort of a hero. His enemy is the sort of thing he faces every day, just another criminal on the streets of Mega-City One. You never feel like Dredd is doing this because of his past, or because somebody has to do the right thing; justice is his job, he does it well. The thing about Judge Dredd is that he doesn't have any angst, not here anyway. There is no dark past motivating him. He stops criminals because he has to.

Mega-City One itself was set well: the opening shots showed riots in the slums, towering apartment complexes, wide, often smoke-filled streets. When we first see Dredd - in hot pursuit of a van driven by drugged-up criminals - we see the wide streets and the daily displays of violence the city deals with, before plunging into a badly-maintained, ill-lit shopping centre - the movie establishes the city as a place in dire need of help. It goes further, revealing the overstretched nature of the police force thanks in part to its rigorous training programme, and the desperate situation the near-future world is in.

I also have to apologise for my biggest complaint: Ma-ma. Watching Dredd, it's easy to understand why they went with her. It is, after all, the first movie; Ma-ma was the perfect choice because she could be killed. They made a powerful villain, with loyal henchmen and vast resources, but she was still just a generic criminal. A drug baroness, but the same as the druggies in the van. She was expendable, as Dredd proved at the end of the movie.

So I enjoyed Dredd, and all my preconceptions about it proved totally wrong, but I still have a few problems with it. Dredd was good, but it wasn't the movie the eponymous judge deserved. It was in fact a relatively small affair, confined to one apartment block in the vast sprawling city. I guess as an introduction it worked well, but I want to see Dredd and Anderson squaring off against the big four, the Dark Judges, in a battle royale through Mega-City One. I want to see Rico Dredd, taking revenge on the chief judges as he tries to take control of the city. I want to see Dredd fighting his big enemies, I want the danger to be less personal. I want everyone to be in danger, not just Dredd.

So yeah, my verdict: a good movie, loved the atmosphere and the villains, very nice effects, but bigger please.

Much bigger...