The first of Dredd\u2019s many pleasures is that it manages to right the wrongs that Danny Cannon and Sylvester Stallone wrought with their woefully misbegotten Judge Dredd adaptation. That earlier film has achieved cult status since its 1995 release, though I can\u2019t imagine why; Judge Dredd largely eschews the satirical intentions of comic-book writer John Wagner\u2019s original Dredd conception (in a dystopian future, Wagner\u2019s Judges act as judge, jury, and executioner for all crimes, and they\u2019re the good guys) for an overblown, needlessly jokey, and \u2013 despite its R rating \u2013 surprisingly bloodless action affair that exists only to stoke Stallone\u2019s raging ego. Want a taste? In the comics, Dredd rarely removes his Judge\u2019s helmet, but Stallone so couldn\u2019t stomach hiding his mug behind that defining visual trait that his Dredd remains unmasked for probably 90% of the picture\u2019s runtime.<\/p>\n
Dredd director Pete Travis doesn\u2019t make that same mistake. In the first scene, we see his Dredd (Karl Urban) suiting up for battle, and Travis affords us only a shadowy glimpse of Urban\u2019s movie-star profile before the helmet swallows up the rest. Dredd the man does not matter; all we care about is the Judge, and his scowling, heavily obscured visage tells us everything we need to know about the character: this is a man who has devoted himself to the law, in all its brutal, messy complications.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not to say that this Dredd is a one-dimensional killing machine \u2013 despite having limited facial expressions at his disposal (we see Dredd\u2019s nose and mouth, which mostly just scowls), Urban creates a whole character from his body language and physical details. The way Dredd strides into one violent altercation after another speaks volumes about his state of mind, as does the quiet, hesitant way he regards his rookie partner Anderson (indie darling Olivia Thirlby, lending this clich\u00e9 of a character pluck and empathy). Not since Paul Verhoeven\u2019s great Robocop has a sci-fi action hero conveyed so much from so little, and Urban\u2019s strange, inscrutable presence gives Dredd more depth than its (admittedly) formulaic plot contours would otherwise have.<\/p>\n
The helmet fix is the first indication that Dredd knows what it\u2019s doing, but it\u2019s a testament to Travis and his Dredd crew that they nail so many of the other details as well. Their Mega City 1 isn\u2019t some Batman and Robin-esque pop-fantasia \u2013 it\u2019s a teeming, fetid slum that spans from Washington, D.C., to Boston. Travis shot Dredd in Cape Town and working with the great cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (he shot such modern genre classics as 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Lars von Trier\u2019s Antichrist), he gives the city an overripe sense of menace. There are very few primary colors in Dredd; the color palette favors dusky browns and oranges, and the digital noise from the Red One camera adds a jittery, pixelated instability.<\/p>\n
The aesthetic message is clear: Mega City 1 is rotting from the inside out, and while it\u2019s possible that Travis and Mantle\u2019s harsh visual choices might have distanced viewers from the film itself (Dredd grossed a paltry $13 million when it premiered last October), I respected Dredd\u2019s full-throated commitment to the rank and the diseased. This future-scape makes no effort to ingratiate itself, as opposed to the iPad-sleek look of most sci-fi blockbusters (Total Recall, I\u2019m looking at you).<\/p>\n
All of these rough, iconoclastic choices add up, and the result is a sci-fi thriller that works far better than it should. On the story level, Dredd is no great shakes; screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) blends equal parts Dirty Harry, Robocop, District 9, Total Recall, The Warriors, and this year\u2019s great The Raid: Redemption to show what happens when Dredd and Anderson go to investigate three random killings and find themselves trapped inside a futuristic apartment tenement with a vicious crime lord (Lena Headey, AKA Queen Cersei on \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d) and her many minions on the warpath. But the visual pizazz more-than compensates for any formula triteness (see Dredd in 3D if you can), as do the performances, which include Urban and Thirlby\u2019s engaging buddy-cop act, Wood Harris\u2019 unwitting criminal escort, and Headey\u2019s frightening \u201cMa-Ma,\u201d who hides manic rage behind a wicked facial scar and eerily calm vocal intonations.<\/p>\n
The on-screen carnage helps, too. Lest it be mistaken that Dredd is some kind of impressionistic chamber piece, I should mention that this thing is, first and foremost, a damn fine action movie. It\u2019s one long siege as the tenement\u2019s occupants turn on Dredd and Anderson, and Travis keeps tossing in ways to make the violence kinetic and involving. The splatter content is insane \u2013 bullets blast county-sized holes out of people, bodies are skinned alive and thrown off buildings, heads are melted \u2013 and in the film\u2019s neatest trick, Garland invents an addictive street drug that only amplifies the chaos. The drug is called Slo-Mo, and it slows down the user\u2019s spatial perception to just 1% of life\u2019s normal speed.<\/p>\n
The Slo-Mo scenes are beautiful; Mantle saturates the images to let in bright primary colors and shimmering pastels. The trade-off is, these bits are also the most violent, since they let Travis dissect every splattery bullet hit with fetishistic, almost-pornographic detail. Sensitive viewers should seek refuge elsewhere, but gore-hounds will be in heaven, and Travis is so good about including enough humor (during a shootout in a mall, the P.A. system blares out all the floors where consumers can safely shop) and varying the types of blood-letting that Dredd\u2019s action never becomes rote or nihilistic.<\/p>\n
In the end, we\u2019re left with a B-movie, but what a B-movie this is! Violent, subversive, and short \u2013 at ninety-six minutes, Dredd doesn\u2019t have time to overstay its welcome. For a select substratum of viewers, it\u2019s a perpetual entertainment machine, and one I was thrilled to ride.<\/p>\n
The Dredd Blu-ray offers 2D and 3D versions on the same disc \u2013 both preserve the film\u2019s gritty visual style. The 2D version is a little sharper, but the 3D version has surprisingly good focus and brightness, and it makes the action scenes all the more immersive, as does the bombastic and crisp 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track.<\/p>\n
Only the bonus features disappoint. Outside of two terrific featurettes (the \u201cMega-City Masters: 35 Years of Judge Dredd\u201d bit on Judge Dredd\u2019s comic-book incarnations and the \u201cDay of Chaos: The Visual Effects of Dredd\u201d feature on the visual effects), what we have is short and perfunctory. There are four production featurettes (\u201cDredd Featurette,\u201d \u201cDredd\u2019s Gear,\u201d \u201cThe 3rd Dimension,\u201d and \u201cWelcome to Peachtree\u201d), the longest of which is only two-and-a-half minutes long, an okay motion comic that runs about three minutes long, and the trailer. I guess I shouldn\u2019t be surprised, but I did want more.<\/p>\n
Still, don\u2019t let that discourage you. Not enough people saw Dredd in theaters \u2013 hopefully, it\u2019ll take hold on home media and turn the Stallone version into a bad dream\u2026<\/p>\n
The Dredd Blu-ray streets on January 8th. Click HERE for Amazon\u2019s listing.