[caption id="attachment_6027" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Justice delayed is justice denied? Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, handing out the sentence.[/caption]
Dredd is an excellent 2012 film adaptation of the long-running British science fiction comic strip Judge Dredd. It's the second try; the first adaptation, Judge Dredd, made in 1995, sank without a trace, under the weight of Sylvester Stallone's ego.
For the 2012 remake, Karl Urban (Star Trek, Almost Human) leaves his ego in the trailer and unleashes his inner Dirty Harry to give a remarkably nuanced performance as an honourable police officer shaped into a relentless killing machine by a brutal future.
The filmmakers avoid the mistakes of the 1995 version. They leave the future in the background and stay focused on the human element. The result is a fast-paced action-adventure film that has an almost arty preoccupation with realism, grittiness and violence -- not glorifying it exactly but definitely finding the beauty in it.
The film begins with a fly-over of the hellish future world of Dredd, narrated by the man himself. Through clenched teeth, Dredd informs us:
So much for the framing story, from here on the film ruthlessly pares down its focus. First we see Dredd in motorcycle pursuit of a van full of drug-sucking scum. The scum take out a jay-walker, Dredd takes out the van. The survivor takes a mall employee hostage. The picture at top shows how a Judge resolves a hostage situation.
Dredd then is saddled with evaluating a rookie. Canssandra Anderson (Olivia Thrilby), is a special case; a borderline fail on standard criteria, her radiation-induced psychic abilities have earned her second chance to prove herself as a Judge. The pair end up investigating a triple homicide at the 200-storey mega block called Peach Trees.
The Peach Trees killings, we learn, are the work of an up-and-coming drug gang, the Ma-Ma clan, named after their leader, Ma-Ma, aka Madeline Madrigal, a homicidal ex-prostitute (Lena Headey). The Ma-Mas are using Peach Trees to manufacture and distribute a new street drug called "Slo-Mo" which slows the perception of time to 1% of normal -- it makes for a beautiful special effect.
[caption id="attachment_6031" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Former hooker with a heart of Semtex. Lena Heady as Ma-Ma, an aspiring drug kingpin.[/caption]
The Ma-Mas control all 200 storeys of Peach Trees, and they proceed to lock down the mega block -- no way in or out -- trapping Judge Dredd, and his rookie. The Ma-Mas have Dredd right where they want him, or vice-versa.
The most effective killing machine the Judges' corps has ever produced, stuck in a giant "roach motel" with an endless supply of bad guys -- but only so much ammo -- there's the setup.
What follows is superficially reminiscent of the 1981 Sean Connery film Outland, which itself, was a pale riff on the 1952 film High Noon.
There's certainly nothing pale about Dredd. The action is fast and intense, the violence is graphic and terribly mesmerizing, the colours are bold and the music is loud. Only the acting is deliberately low-key and subdued -- never over the top.
The special effects are all-pervasive but not the least bit science-fictiony. No ray guns or space ships.
Judge Dredd is a future projection of real-world fears of urban lawlessness and disorder; so the special effects are all about realism -- attenuated realism, and they are spectacularly successful.
It is in fact, a rather ruthless piece of filmmaking. The producers have shown a real tough love for the source material. By carefully cherry-picking nearly 40 years of the continuity, they've successfully boiled it down to an intense 95-minute episode of raw personal survival.
The film stays true to the spirit of Judge Dredd, and finally does justice to a great comic strip.
The Judge Dredd comic strip began publishing in the magazine 2000 AD way back in 1977 and has surely become the best known UK comic ever, supplanting the great 1950s strip Dan Dare, which interestingly was revived for the first issue of 2000 AD in 1977, appearing along side the Judge Dredd strip.
In the comic strip, Judge Dredd is a total hard-ass -- Dirty Harry on steroids. He does not compromise, he does not waver, and he absolutely does not ever take off his helmet! And, while the character himself does not have a sense of humour, the strip does; leavening the violence with both humour, and satire.
The 1995 film horrified fans by, among other things, having Stallone's Judge Dredd take off his helmet -- Sylvester Stallone's face was box office gold right?
Eighteen years later Karl Urban's Dredd never takes the helmet off.
Justice delayed is justice denied? Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, handing out the sentence.[/caption]Dredd is an excellent 2012 film adaptation of the long-running British science fiction comic strip Judge Dredd. It's the second try; the first adaptation, Judge Dredd, made in 1995, sank without a trace, under the weight of Sylvester Stallone's ego.
For the 2012 remake, Karl Urban (Star Trek, Almost Human) leaves his ego in the trailer and unleashes his inner Dirty Harry to give a remarkably nuanced performance as an honourable police officer shaped into a relentless killing machine by a brutal future.
Doing real justice to comic book violence
The filmmakers avoid the mistakes of the 1995 version. They leave the future in the background and stay focused on the human element. The result is a fast-paced action-adventure film that has an almost arty preoccupation with realism, grittiness and violence -- not glorifying it exactly but definitely finding the beauty in it.
The film begins with a fly-over of the hellish future world of Dredd, narrated by the man himself. Through clenched teeth, Dredd informs us:
"America is an irradiated wasteland. Within it lies a city. Outside the boundary walls, a desert. A cursed earth. Inside the walls, a cursed city, stretching from Boston to Washington D.C. An unbroken concrete landscape. 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world and the mega structures of the new one. Mega blocks. Mega highways. Mega City One. Convulsing. Choking. Breaking under its own weight. Citizens in fear of the street. The gun. The gang. Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos: the men and women of the Hall of Justice. Juries. Executioners. Judges."
So much for the framing story, from here on the film ruthlessly pares down its focus. First we see Dredd in motorcycle pursuit of a van full of drug-sucking scum. The scum take out a jay-walker, Dredd takes out the van. The survivor takes a mall employee hostage. The picture at top shows how a Judge resolves a hostage situation.
Dredd then is saddled with evaluating a rookie. Canssandra Anderson (Olivia Thrilby), is a special case; a borderline fail on standard criteria, her radiation-induced psychic abilities have earned her second chance to prove herself as a Judge. The pair end up investigating a triple homicide at the 200-storey mega block called Peach Trees.
The Peach Trees killings, we learn, are the work of an up-and-coming drug gang, the Ma-Ma clan, named after their leader, Ma-Ma, aka Madeline Madrigal, a homicidal ex-prostitute (Lena Headey). The Ma-Mas are using Peach Trees to manufacture and distribute a new street drug called "Slo-Mo" which slows the perception of time to 1% of normal -- it makes for a beautiful special effect.
[caption id="attachment_6031" align="alignnone" width="497"]
Former hooker with a heart of Semtex. Lena Heady as Ma-Ma, an aspiring drug kingpin.[/caption]The Ma-Mas control all 200 storeys of Peach Trees, and they proceed to lock down the mega block -- no way in or out -- trapping Judge Dredd, and his rookie. The Ma-Mas have Dredd right where they want him, or vice-versa.
The most effective killing machine the Judges' corps has ever produced, stuck in a giant "roach motel" with an endless supply of bad guys -- but only so much ammo -- there's the setup.
What follows is superficially reminiscent of the 1981 Sean Connery film Outland, which itself, was a pale riff on the 1952 film High Noon.
There's certainly nothing pale about Dredd. The action is fast and intense, the violence is graphic and terribly mesmerizing, the colours are bold and the music is loud. Only the acting is deliberately low-key and subdued -- never over the top.
The special effects are all-pervasive but not the least bit science-fictiony. No ray guns or space ships.
Judge Dredd is a future projection of real-world fears of urban lawlessness and disorder; so the special effects are all about realism -- attenuated realism, and they are spectacularly successful.
It is in fact, a rather ruthless piece of filmmaking. The producers have shown a real tough love for the source material. By carefully cherry-picking nearly 40 years of the continuity, they've successfully boiled it down to an intense 95-minute episode of raw personal survival.
The film stays true to the spirit of Judge Dredd, and finally does justice to a great comic strip.
The Judge Dredd comic strip began publishing in the magazine 2000 AD way back in 1977 and has surely become the best known UK comic ever, supplanting the great 1950s strip Dan Dare, which interestingly was revived for the first issue of 2000 AD in 1977, appearing along side the Judge Dredd strip.
In the comic strip, Judge Dredd is a total hard-ass -- Dirty Harry on steroids. He does not compromise, he does not waver, and he absolutely does not ever take off his helmet! And, while the character himself does not have a sense of humour, the strip does; leavening the violence with both humour, and satire.
The 1995 film horrified fans by, among other things, having Stallone's Judge Dredd take off his helmet -- Sylvester Stallone's face was box office gold right?
Eighteen years later Karl Urban's Dredd never takes the helmet off.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)