I'm gonna go ahead and very much disagree with you Doc Sub.

Dredd is a very solid genre movie, I can see why some people might not dig it, but not for the reasons you say, it's VASTLY better and more imaginative than Surrogates.

I actually think the screenplay is very strong, a stream-lined minimalist, day-in-the-life storyline, with characters that we can root for. Especially early-on, I was getting a really strong Robocop vibe, with how the movie is casually making fun of the fucked up world and the totalitarian state running it. I would say it doesn't push the satire hard enough, to where some people could read it as a facist power fantasy, but I do believe the film-makers and the movie do not come out supporting Dredd's actions.

Regarding world-building, that's where I really, really disagree. I think this has some of the best sci-fi world-building I've seen in a long damned time. It feels believable in that "Children of Men" way, where the technology is not stupidly advanced, you see people still taking pictures with cell-phone cameras. This future has a unique feel to it. I love the look of the city, the way the mega-blocks are designed and laid out. The way they casually mention that Judges are only able to respond to 6% of the crime out there.

Even something that would normally be just stupid and gratouitous, the ultra-slo-mo shots, actually work in context of the story. You see how depressing life is for people in the world and it makes complete sense why they would take a drug like this to help escape reality.

You wanted the movie to explore the world outside the blocks more, but I don't feel like that's a fair criticism, this is explicitly a lower-budget, focused movie based around one location.

If the movie has flaws, it's that there are some pacing issues (unlike The Raid, which is ultimately a more satisfying action film than this), and the actual gun-fights are just not very exciting to watch.
Still damned good, really wish there was more stuff like this getting made.

Last edited by bullet3 (2012-09-22 22:05:08)

But that's the point, the world has gone to shit to such an extent that technology is basically frozen at where it would be 5 or 10 years from now. The government has some fancier toys to play with, but for the average person it's no different from living in the slums today.

I also think you're coming at this wrong when it comes to the Dredd character. He's not the protagonist here, he's not supposed to have an arc. The whole point of the Dredd character is that he's totally immovable, a living incarnation of the messed up justice system. Anderson is the one who goes through a character arc, she starts out eager to "make it" as a judge, and comes out questioning the way the system is run, after she sees the consequences of some of the people she's killed. The movie smartly keeps these things in the background and doesn't try to get in your face about it. It makes it easy to fall into rooting for Dredd and supporting the justice system, but the wrongs of the system are subtly seen falling in along the periphery and aren't shied away from (I mean for christ-sake, he uses white-phosphorous to burn a bunch of people alive). I do wish it was a bit more explicit a la Robocop, but it's definitely there.

On the other hand, you perhaps expect the movie to do something the opposite of what it intended. Always the problem when a 30+ year old franchise is exported. If the movie in fact doesn't give Dredd an arc, they're at least being true to what I remember of the source material. Dredd is a there for other characters to react to, not to react.

I haven't seen Dredd, but plenty of good genre films present a main character who doesn't change much, particularly the James Bond franchise, superhero movies after the first film, and most detective movies.

James Bond also has charisma, and defining character traits. Dredd has nothing but a gravely voice.

So, it's like the previous attempt? Lackluster and too flashy for its own good?

To be fair, they were pretty restricted with the character of Dredd because that is basically all he is in the comics. A brutal chin with a gravely voice. Maybe he is one comic character that doesn't translate to the big screen.

The short answer is that the movie mostly plays it straight and has Dredd as the good guy like you said, but occasionally hints at how fucked up what they're doing is. There's a bit early on where he calls in for cleanup after a bunch of civilians have been killed as a result of him pursuing a bad guy, and there's janitors casually mopping up the corpses and a PA announcement saying the plaza will reopen in 10 minutes or something. Very Robocop. Not enough of that kind of stuff there for my taste, so it's definitely not a great movie, but it is there.

Anderson is mostly committed to becoming a judge but she sees and does some things that make her think twice about it.

I'm tempted to write a review, but for now, I'll just say the new animated adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns is everything Year One wasn't. Great job adapting the comic, knowing what to keep and what to drop. I was very impressed by how the lack of narration, key to the comic but hard to pull off in a film, was replaced with wordless visuals and just the occasional dialog to get plot details across. Splitting it into two parts was also the right thing to do, giving the whole thing room to breath.

Buy it

I too, saw the Master in 70mm and it left a hearty impression.  I was fascinated by how it could feel so heavy, with surprisingly little plot.  The character work is so deep that you never want to avert your gaze from the screen.

Yep, extremely Kubrickian in how it is utterly fascinating and riveting despite very little plot. You can take almost any 2 minutes of that movie out of context and it's still totally engrossing, just look at some of the teasers P.T. Anderson cut for it:

Last edited by bullet3 (2012-09-25 22:25:47)

I don't like Year One in general so I can't compare the two. While I agree that certain aspects of the comics don't translate well to film keeping some of the narration in would be like icing on the cake. Just like they dealt with the tv screen commentary which is featured a lot in the comic. In the film  it's trimmed down and it works. The problem with cutting out the narration completly is  that you can't just put it back. Once it's gone it's gone. And while Part 1 is still good without it, I fear that once you throw Superman in the mix things won't work so smoothly. Once the conflict between Bats and Superman escalates it's gonna be very hard to show their thought process and motivations without the aid of a narrator.

Last edited by Lamer (2012-09-26 00:45:37)