DREDD reviews. (SPOILERS!)

[hazy efc]

I felt sorry for the hacker myself and i agree a really good performance by the guy im unfamiliar with his name, as a whole the acting was great from the whole cast 1 of the characters that stood out for me was mama`s right hand man he had a real robocop badguy vibe about him and i think he was the guy who dredd march`es to the edge of one of the floors and just throws him off and then turns around and walks into the smoke for me it was the most chilling part of the movie and it came just after i thought mama had dredds number, i really cant say enough good things about the movie and im going to go see it again on friday cant wait 

[Danbo]

What I want to know is will somebody put the plans up for how to convert a 750 GSX into a Lawmaster or even make a kit?  Judge  leather jacket with the embossed shoulders that he wears under the bullet vest would be cool too.

And a helmet


Gloves etc...

[Glenn Broadway]

I don't think we could have got a better movie for the money. Well, maybe if the 3D portion of the budget could have gone to something else... Whilst I'm on the 3D here's my (quite personal) experience.

I was very reluctant to watch it in 3D, but the Empire Leicester Square trip was worth it. I don't have binocular vision. My right eye was deemed useless by my brain at a very young eye (due to it being turned in about 90 degrees). After a couple of operations I do get some peripheral image in it (albeit very blurry).

I've never seen a 3D image through red/green glasses, or been able to do a magic eye picture. Whenever I watch a 3D TV I see no 3D effect at all. I've avoided going to a 3D cinema screening as I see it as a waste. Extra ticket price just to watch a murky version of the film (potentially at half the frame rate).

Well, the showing we saw on Saturday night was via polarised glasses. The image was a little darker than normal, but I think the film is purposefully brighter than you'd expect to account for this. Frame rate wasn't an issue (as it would be with shutter glasses). But most amazingly of all I did get a 3D effect for the first time ever - in one, 2 second scene (right at the end, with Dredd behind the brken glass)!

I can only imagine that the 3D throughout would be quite something to see. However, I still think it's a gimmick employed almost entirely to extract more money out of customers. I applaud Christopher Nolan for avoiding it.

My other thoughts on the film.

RESPIRATOR: Sad it wasn't the badge of the helmet (maybe it'll make an appearance as an upgrade in the sequel).
HOT SHOT: Stood out as an odd type of round.
ANSERSON: Superb, especially how she was a completely different person inside her psychic world.
DREDD: A previous post nailed it when they said he used the minimum number of words to get his message across, without any need for shouting. Beautifully understated and at the same time utterly menacing. I was actually scared of him at one point.
CURSED EARTH: and not Curse-ed Earth a la James Earl Jones. Nice.
SOUND DESIGN: Brutal. Excellent. Right from the explosive Dredd logo. Later, the sound of things like bodies hitting the floor were spot on.
MC1: 
SLO-MO: The 1% thing bugged me. I thought it was like 10-20%.
HUMOUR: Wagner would have been proud: "No, wait for her to shoot you."
VIOLENCE: They found whole new ways to show bodies coming apart. Gruesome, but brilliant.

I'm a little sad that if we do get a sequel then it's likely to be set in the Cursed Earth. For me Dredd is as much about MC1 as it is the Judges. But I'm sure it would be great nonetheless, and it would mean the money could be stretched further, no doubt. Conversely, I quite dislike Death and the Dark Judges but the way Alex Garland (briefly) described how he might handle them sounded intriguing and I think it would be great to see.

Overall: The perfect antidote to all those sugary Marvel superhero movies. A proper, grown up, action film, with an astonishing realisation of a british comic book legend. Thank you Alex and Karl.

[Fisticuffs]

Is Hot Shot a round all on its own, or an alternative command for an Incendiary?

[Mikey]

Saw it last night...

I'll just add my two creds to say that it was an excellent Dredd film. Mega City One looked bleak and forboding as a relentlessly urban (ha!) landscape would be. The performances were pitch perfect and I personally thought Thirlby had the edge as I was watching it, but quickly realised that Urban had got Dredd so right it was hard to empathise with him in the same way as with Anderson - her purpose after all! Loved how they dealt with her psi and that it introduced the idea of mutants for any possible future outings. I also thought Lena Headly was brilliant giving real depth to the relatively few lines she had, and I was genuinely sorry to see her splat on the slab. A great anti hero imo. Would have liked to see Wood Harris get more to do too, but there you go.

3D was great, only my second experience and I'm impressed by what I thought was just a bit of a gimmick.
I think my favourite scene was when Dredd moves back in from the skate park, tracking the perps, taking most of them out before chucking Caleb (?) off the balcony in front of Ma Ma. Fuckin goosebumps! It was such a great character moment - really showed what a tough, uncompromising, frighteningly driven and possibly psychotic indvidual we're dealing with. Marvellous! I also thought the night view of the City looked amazing and was sorry we didn't see more of it.

I have some minor quibbles, but nothing that spoiled my enjoyment so I'll leave them aside to bask in the fact it was just drokking wonderful to see the characters there on the screen rather than a simulacrum. Up yer shiny bangs and whistles Hollywood, this is a grim hole of a Mega City and by Grud I love it.

Thank you to everyone involved in making this. And congratualtions on hitting #1 in the UK Box Office!

As them young ones do say - MOAR!

M.

[Spaceghost]

Is Hot Shot a round all on its own, or an alternative command for an Incendiary?

Didn't they use 'hotshot' as a name for the heat-seeker bullet in the early Dredds? It was obviously an incendiary in the film.

[Steve Green]

Yep, hotshot is a heatseeker rather than incendiary.

I guess they could have gone with a heatseeker where the gun is pointed away while he's talking to the perp, but it would have been a bit similar to Robocop's ricochet.

[Glenn Broadway]

Re the Hot Shot - I suppose I meant the drawn out death was a bit odd.

[MR. ELIMINATOR]

Re the opening scene with the bike and van, I bloody loved it!!  I kept thinking of that Bolland cover that someone posted up a while back (was it a Quality comic cover?) with Dredd hanging off the front of a van.  I spoke to Alex Garland about that, and he thought I was being nice to him and sparing his feelings when I said I really enjoyed that part, but no - it's a blast!  Dredd screaming through traffic, the bad dudes realising a Judge is on their tail, 'Do you require backup?' 'No.'  - it was all brilliant!  I was grinning from ear to ear like a bloody goon on each of the three occasions I've seen that bit so far.  As an opening to the film it was just excellent - grabbing viewers by the balls right from the outset, as it should be.

I was grinning like that too! The opening is my favourite bit of the film. It is just amazing! I love the the bass notes right when it opens, and the narration, and the music and the roar of the bike, and using old cars too. It is perfect.

Oh, and when Dredd gets off the bike as well and marches towards the crash, the sound it makes when his boots hit the floor gives him such power. Absolute badass.

I have said it before, but what I really like about the grungy look of this film, and the old cars, is it feels like a sci-fi film that is set in the future, but made in the 80s. Love it!

[Danbo]

Just seen this quote from FURRYBASTARD over on the Empire forum

''On this week's Empire podcast, Chris said that given the chance he'd probably up the score to 4 stars. If such things are important to people!''

Thats better 

http://www.empireonline.com/forum/tm.asp?m=3455189&mpage=3&key=

[JOE SOAP]

''On this week's Empire podcast, Chris said that given the chance he'd probably up the score to 4 stars. If such things are important to people!''

Obviously it's not important to him then so why not just scrap the star-rating.

[Teivion]

What I want to know is will somebody put the plans up for how to convert a 750 GSX into a Lawmaster or even make a kit?  Judge  leather jacket with the embossed shoulders that he wears under the bullet vest would be cool too.

And a helmet


Gloves etc...

Well, if someone wants to supply me with a donor bike.......

[Eric Plumrose]

Also: Dredd has always been about expediency.

Sure. And I had no problem with him dispatching Ma-Ma in the manner he did. But with the roughing-up and headbutt he already had Anderson on hand to do what she then went on to do.

Still small beans compared to nuking a billion innocent cits in the Apocalypse War.

Heh. While it's a course of action I'll not condone it's one that's in-character for Dredd and for the same reason, I presume, he authorized the use of torture in 'After the Bombs': To protect the City, with immediate effect, from further destruction.

[Danbo]

''On this week's Empire podcast, Chris said that given the chance he'd probably up the score to 4 stars. If such things are important to people!''

Obviously it's not important to him then so why not just scrap the star-rating.

Yeah,it's been a little iffy on Empire for a while now,Attack of the Clones 5 stars sealed it for me.They run some nice articles on film though.

[thejudgemuffin]

Off for my second viewing tonight and another two booked in this week. Number one in box office...big grins!