Review: Dredd 3D

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



Dredd (3D)
98 mins / Dir. Pete Travis

Y'know, you wait bloody ages for a movie about a principled, uncorruptable cop, trying to make his way to the top floor of a slum apartment block, because a drug-dealing crimelord who owns the whole building (in every sense) has locked it down when they've gotten wind of the aforementioned cop's presence… and then two come along at once.



The Plot: Pretty much that thing I said, up there. Oh, his rookie sidekick has Psi powers in this one, though. And the baddie's a chick, as well. Are you with me, fellas?

The Pre-amble: In all honesty, I can't call myself a Judge Dredd fanboy. I read 2000AD religiously for a couple of years in the early 90's (it was the awesome Necropolis run that got me into it), but after a while it just wasn't for me. I get Judge Dredd, and I know what I want from a movie adaptation, but I don't speak for those who know it far better than me. I'll also point out now that I never actually watched the god-awful Stallone version: I turned it off after twenty minutes. So with that, I sat down this afternoon to watch the last big movie of the Summer...

The Good: Some of the photography in Dredd is gorgeous. Part of me suspects that the whole 'drug that makes time slow down' thing was just a massive excuse to shoot in hi-def 3D at 2000 frames per second, because it's used a lot. More than is strictly needed, really. The 3D's not too shabby for a live-action, but like most 3D, it's not really necessary. I quite liked that Judge Anderson uses her psychic abilities fairly regularly (and usefully), rather than it just being a device to get them out of a tight spot. The actual scope of the film is fairly small, so after a very generic and cringe-inducing voiceover intro, the film-makers don't really have to explain the rest of the Mega City One universe, it's just sort of there. In this respect, it'd make a good introduction to a TV series about the Judges.

The Bad: This really is just The Raid, but with no martial arts (…or excitement). Dredd's worst crime is how grindingly average it is. Karl Urban was a terrible choice for the role as he has neither the build, voice or presence to pull it off. Wearing a decent rendition of the outfit and doing your best Eastwood impersonation isn't enough, I'm afraid. There's also a point early in the movie where he tells a vagrant (illegal in M-C1) not to be there when he gets back. It may be a setup for a weak joke down the line, but the Dredd I thought I knew wouldn't let anyone off with anything, no matter how small or whatever other job he was on. On a character front, only Anderson gets any real room to breathe, and everyone else may as well be cut out of cardboard with numbers on their heads. Even Dredd is left-be, as everyone seems to have taken the approach of 'preserving his mystery'. Y'know… 'not bothered laying out any characteristics outside of catchphrases from the comics'.

If this had been a non-franchised future-noir action thriller, it'd be pretty good. Unfortunately, it sets its own bar too high with pre-release promises of greatness, and can't quite shake of the shadow of a former disappointment. Just being better than a shit thing does not make you a good thing.

The Ugly: I'd half-prepared a rant about the ridiculous excuse for the Lawmaster bikes they're using, but they're not actually featured in the film much, so I'll leave that for those with a more genuine grievance to handle. I was a little surprised at all the effing and jeffing going on in the film (even at its 18 Certificate), only because I thought the universe had developed its own friendlier terminology. That said, having hardened criminals walking around in an 18 Cert and saying 'Drokk' may undermine the seriousness of the piece somewhat. And it does take itself quite seriously.

All-in-all: It's not good, bad or ugly. Just a really straightforward action-thriller. If there'd been some sort of setup for Judge Death appearing in a sequel, I could probably get more excited about it. As it stands… well, it's not as awful as I was expecting it to be.

After the Credits: Nothing. Names on the screen? You can make your way out.

Worth £10+? Not really, in all honesty. Worth an Orange Wednesday though, for sure.



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.

9. The Land Before Time?

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh lanugage and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.

If you buy a newspaper today or tomorrow, have a look on the date on the front. If you buy anything that warrants a receipt, have a look at the date on it. And when you've got to write the date, have a look at what you're writing.

If you do this within the next month, you'll be seeing "2008". Think about that, why that number?

2008 years since what? The birth of Christ, obviously, but are you a Christian? Was the person that sold you the paper or gave you the receipt a Christian? Maybe you're a Satanist and you're being served by a Muslim, and yet the Christians are telling you what the date is. I'm not overly religious myself (as you know), and I try to be as fair-minded as I can (Karma and all that - don't think that counts as a religion), and I was thinking the other day:

Doesn't it seem a little selfish of the Christians to get to choose what year it is?

Maybe the Muslim calendar has a completely different year-number, which is on the front of their papers. Don't they get a little gutted every time they've got to write a cheque or sign for a washing machine..?


So I was thinking, what did they call the years before Anno Domini? At the time, I mean.

Quite obviously, they didn't call it B.C. on account of them not knowing that the birth of The Saviour was going to happen in X years time. What about when they had to write a cheque, or sign for a new Sky+ box?

Leaving those fripperies aside, they must have had a system for knowing what year it was, otherwise how would they know when they were born and when their birthdays were? How could they talk about the past?

"You remember that year we went to Gaul for our holidays?"
"What year was that, year X?"
"No X was when we went to Rome"
"Oh hang on, EVERY year is called X"

Maybe they gave the years names, like the Chinese calendar (dog, rabbit etc), but with a non-repetitive system. So they called them, Bob, Terry, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mark T, Mark J, Augustus, etc?

So assuming they DID have a year-numbering system (logically, they did), what was it based on? Apparently, each religion sets their year 0 at the arrival of their chosen one or messiah. So who was the big deal before Jesus? Weren't his followers a bit hacked off at suddenly having to write "33AD" on their cheques?

I'd be fucking livid.

Is it time we reset the date again and gave it to another religion? Not one of the big-boys, give it to some small, just-starting-out one. Like Christianity was 2000 years ago.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at the Christians;
I just don't like that smug look they've got when they're writing a cheque...



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.