Dredd, 2012. The perfect film.

[JOE SOAP]

The slow-mo  death scenes are porn. deal with it.

All violence in film is porn; Dredd just doesn't pretend it's not and instead tries to do something else with it. By slowing it down it is requesting you to look at it rather than cutting around it.

[MR. ELIMINATOR]

I love this film, but I wouldn't call it perfect. There's still a few things that niggle at me and I wish were different. Really small things though, like how sometimes the helmet on dredd sits at different places on his head. Mostly near the start it is in the right place, but as the film goes on the visor seems to get higher and higher up his face.

Also I still can't love the "Freeze, why?" scene with the juves. And I still wish they kept the original opening.

Off the top of my head my perfect film is Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. Wouldn't want anything to be different with that film.

[IndigoPrime]

Also I still can't love the "Freeze, why?" scene with the juves. And I still wish they kept the original opening.

Which was?

[darnmarr]

Robocop.

[hazy efc]

DREDD is an excellent film if you ask me as for perfect there`s no such thing as perfect,
Its plain to see that the makers of DREDD worked there ass`s off to make the best movie
they could on a modest budget and thus we got an excellent movie, Everything has its flaws
and trust me i no im an everton fan haha 

[dweezil2]

And I still wish they kept the original opening.

Then we would of been denied this lovely shot!

[darnmarr]

We would, and while I never saw the original opening (I read it) I'm sure the folk involved wouldn't have gone to the hassle and expenxe to re-shoot it without good reason. On a point from earlier though:

... I think it's almost as thought-provoking as Blade Runner in the way Mama is dispatched....  ...It has the same downbeat sense of anti-climax that viewers of both films have criticized as underwhelming, but which I think are fitting and satisfying endings to both films.

I concur RicheyJ. Also this particular 'violent' slo-mo death is too sublime (for me) to ever described as porn: compare it to the 911-reminding 'thumps' of the bodies at the beginning of the film. If deaths like that were the only type depicted I would honestly understand the criticism of the violence.
Other Blade-runner comparisons that come to mind: the pathetic slo-mo stumbling of Zhora through sheets of glass, the horrific epileptic-fit banshee-wailing of Pris in her death-agony, illustrate even further what Dredd got right, to my mind anyway.
Nothing but 'video-game' deaths* without ever showing pain or consequence, ( or "think of the poor Henchmen"moments ) is what violence-porn is to me. Dredd brings us closer. That may feel too voyeuristic for some but surely that's what makes it not porn? Surely that's what makes it far more responsible and meaningful?
*of which there are plenty in Dredd, my point being they're not the only deaths.

[JOE SOAP]

Nothing but 'video-game' deaths* without ever showing pain or consequence, ( or "think of the poor Henchmen"moments ) is what violence-porn is to me. Dredd brings us closer. That may feel too voyeuristic for some but surely that's what makes it not porn? Surely that's what makes it far more responsible and meaningful?
*of which there are plenty in Dredd, my point being they're not the only deaths.

As a commercial film, Dredd at its base is certainly explicit in its violence, in that it wants you to witness it whether it be artistically sublimated or not. People tied themselves in knots about whether Alan Moore's Lost Girls should be considered porn because it featured exquisitely drawn pictures in the midst of a thoughtful meta-story about repressed sex and war but at the end of the day it's all about explicitly manipulating and exploiting the image, violent or sexual, to provoke a particularly strong intellectual thought and/or feeling, and most of all, to entertain. I wouldn't want it otherwise.

Commercial video games and run of the mill action-films are degrees on the same curve as more sardonic/satirical films like RoboCop and Dredd that teeter on exploitation but they all, at some level and in certain sequences, contain sheer visceral thrills that entertain and titillate: it is Judge Dredd after all - a man who single-handedly committed genocide and levelled an entire mega-city out of revenge. Sometimes we're just there for the ride and others for the thoughtful pay-off. When both are combined they work a lot better and make for a stronger story than when otherwise separate.

[darnmarr]

Quite so and it's when the story only ever about 'the ride' that comparisons with porn have any validity, for me.

[JOE SOAP]

Any port in a storm.

[mididoctors]

The slow-mo  death scenes are porn. deal with it.

All violence in film is porn; Dredd just doesn't pretend it's not and instead tries to do something else with it. By slowing it down it is requesting you to look at it rather than cutting around it.

it's not a criticism... you point is valid.

you have to deal with it and your own reaction... there is no where to hide

deal with it. [geddit]

[mididoctors]

The slow-mo  death scenes are porn. deal with it.

All violence in film is porn; Dredd just doesn't pretend it's not and instead tries to do something else with it. By slowing it down it is requesting you to look at it rather than cutting around it.

Agreed... point I already made on the Dreddful thread

Someone else mentioned something about not liking violence to be sanitised... but as has also been argued here, the violence in 'Dredd' is 'fantasy' rather than realistic - so doesn't it then glorify the violence, rather than just showing it for what it is? I draw people's attention to the opening scene of 'Saving Private Ryan,' which is highly realistic, shows blood spraying about and whatever, but doesn't glorify it - I think I would have been happier if the violence was more along these lines - zooming in on the flaying and the like, however artistically, is a glorification.

I would turn that on its head... The glorification of violence troupe is pretty universal.

I would go as far as to paint saving prt ryan as a pro war movie that totally glorified and legitimized violence including legitimizing the inhumanity of it. Because the realism allows one to not have to question ones own motive in watching it and the narrative is completely pro war.

the war is /can be/made legitimate as long as it is given meaning and in SPR you are cuddled the whole way through by numerous little morality plays. I actually grew to detest this film on repeat viewing because it is a lie in so far as it is not really that realistic anyway and is just a vehicle for war porn


DREDD is full of violence porn it makes few excuses for it and the protagonists on either side of the law have sociopathic drives [yes DREDD too] which enable them. You have to carry the burden of enjoying the violence yourself as a viewer. there is no excuse given to you by the film makers

the affect is alienating at times.. whats your point?

[JOE SOAP]

deal with it. [geddit]

Or just turn it off.

[darnmarr]

and write a blog about it.

[mididoctors]

deal with it. [geddit]

Or just turn it off.

I guess

I think people do need to appreciate the rating of this film before watching... In a way I would prefer a C+ rating meaning "not for kids challenges adults"