DREDD reviews. (SPOILERS!)

[Jim_Campbell]

And building on this observation, it also has the female 'sidekick' character saving the life of the male lead.

And equally notably, IMO, not needing to be rescued.

Cheers

Jim

[radiator]

AND manages to have a central male/female relationship with plenty of chemisty without ever shoehorning in any suggestion of love interest plot.

Sad to say, but this film is practically ground-breaking.

[Richmond Clements]

Sad to say, but this film is practically ground-breaking.

I was going to say ground-breaking in my post, but pulled back from it. You're probably right though.
Outside of a James Cameron movie, we pretty much never see a female character in an action film this strong.

[Michaelvk]

Princess Leia was pretty hard core at times..

[Jim_Campbell]

Sad to say, but this film is practically ground-breaking.

It also passes the Bechdel Test for the scene in which Ma-Ma and Kaplan discuss killing Anderson.

If the film does nothing else, I'd be happy if it put the boot into Hollywood's slavish adherence to the idea that every character must have 'an arc'; that it's not proper writing unless your protagonist has undergone some emotional journey and is demonstrably changed by the experience.

I'm not saying that no characters should ever grow as part of the narrative, but, by the same token, it's not necessary to shoe-horn in a character arc to hit some nebulous concept of what a good screenplay 'should' do.

Cheers

Jim

[Richmond Clements]

Princess Leia was pretty hard core at times..

At times... although her main function in the first movie was to be rescued. In Empire: fall in love, get captured, get rescued. Jedi: brief period of being hardass (while pretending to be a man), then capture, gratuitous bikini (didn't Fisher make a comment about her character suddenly forgetting how to speak during these scenes?)  then needing rescued again. Battle of Endor: got shot, needed rescued.
And also, bear in mind she is the ONLY female character in the original trilogy. No, Mon Mothma doesn't count. Nor does Aunt Beru.

[Proudhuff]

It's important too, because it throws things into perspective for Dredd. Anderson may not be HIS kind of judge, but she proves herself and he realises he can trust her - just as it is in the comics.

It really bugs me when people say that Dredd has 'no plot' or 'no story' - it has a SIMPLE plot, yes, but give me a simple story expertly and elegantly told than an overblown, undercooked, slightly muddled 'epic' (Dark Knight Rises) any day.

What he said ^


And Anderson as a female lead, sans love interest, is so unusual. I'm surprised reviewers haven't picked up on it, and as pointed out above she does the rescuing as opposed to being the rescuee, how often does that happen without the mother or lover motivation?

[radiator]

Another parallel with Robocop, I guess, and the Murphy and Lewis partnership.

[Buddy]

Who had the Judge Death tattoo in the film... was looking out for it but didn't see it.

Anyone see it??

[Leigh S]

Saw it yesterday, after giving up on a 2D showing...

It was as great as a "real world" Dredd film could be, and surprisingly (for me), that is pretty great!  Like SBT and maybe a few others in this parish, I've been wary of shaving off the more outre elements of Dredd, because they are what give Dredd that deeper level.   Crudely, its why I prefer 60s Batman over Nolan, as the layer of humour and unreality add a pizazz that no amount of pretending dressing up as a bat could realistically occur can give....

But it looked beautiful, was acted perfectly by the main actors, and if you squinted at the modern day stuff and imagined a slightly bigger budget giving us better vans and some kneepads, the script could have easily fitted into the comic, with a couple of niggles...

Plot niggle - they blow up half a floor of the block, but still think they can cover it up by offing Anderson and Dredd and putting it down to a little intergang rivalry... and the Judges will just accept this and walk away...?   I know otherwise Anderson is toast there, but really, did I miss an explanation that made sense of that?

Dredd niggle - rule number 1 of bad Dredd writing is "Dredd executes surrendered/incapacitated perps as they have been sentenced to death"... Nothing feels more wrong for me in a Dredd script, and it jars here too.  I love the extreme lengths that the Judges go to to keep perps alive to serve their time - witness "the forever crimes" and especially "The other Slab Tynan", and many other stories where Dredd could just off the perp, but goes to insane lengths to actually save them - its that flavour that I think "real world" Dredd misses out on, more so than hover boards and uglies.  If they do a "democracy" sequel, then all well and good, and the harshness we see here might get questioned as part of the narrative.  Dredd is a bastard, but when you see him risk his own life for some punk, you realise he's a driven bastard rather than a sadistic one, and here it went a bit sadistic one more than one occassion.

But otherwise, top show, and I'll probably try and catch a 2d if such a thing ever shows.

[Spikes]

Dredd niggle - rule number 1 of bad Dredd writing is "Dredd executes surrendered/incapacitated perps as they have been sentenced to death"... Nothing feels more wrong for me in a Dredd script, and it jars here too.  I love the extreme lengths that the Judges go to to keep perps alive to serve their time - witness "the forever crimes" and especially "The other Slab Tynan", and many other stories where Dredd could just off the perp, but goes to insane lengths to actually save them 

Im guessing that in the locked-down and isolated situation they found themselves in, they had to go a bit 'route one', if you will. Which is in keeping with the comic.
I didnt get the impression Dredd was a sadistic bastard, at any point in the film, only ever a driven one.
Dredd's line to Anderson about not being able to execute somebody on only a 99% probability - or words to that effect, told you a great deal, as did Dredd's response, when Anderson sorta sugested cutting Kay loose later on. So, Kay was dragged along, no doubt, putting them at greater risk and almost certainly slowing them down. 

[Leigh S]

Possibly, but its not explicit that they are doing it purely because of the lockdown - Theres that line at the start where Dredd says she will ahve to execute perps, and Dredd specifically telling people they have a death sentence - as part of her test, you'd think Anderson might have to make the call re "extenuating circs" allowing them greater shoot to kill powers than the norm.  Or something like that to make it clear this wasnt standard procedure.  As for sadistic, you have Dredd beat up KAy before Anderson steps in and reads his mind... Again, you could call extenuating circs.. One of the first Dredd stories I ever read was "Knock on the door", where its made clear that torture is a crime, even if its a judge trying to extrct a confession/information - again, its little details like that that make Dredd as a character stand out from other "action" heroes - he holds himself to even sterner rules than the citizens he polices.  Plus the whole slo-mo thing at the end - didnt see what that added other than a rather unseemly (for Dredd) "poetic" justice...

Dredd niggle - rule number 1 of bad Dredd writing is "Dredd executes surrendered/incapacitated perps as they have been sentenced to death"... Nothing feels more wrong for me in a Dredd script, and it jars here too.  I love the extreme lengths that the Judges go to to keep perps alive to serve their time - witness "the forever crimes" and especially "The other Slab Tynan", and many other stories where Dredd could just off the perp, but goes to insane lengths to actually save them 

Im guessing that in the locked-down and isolated situation they found themselves in, they had to go a bit 'route one', if you will. Which is in keeping with the comic.
I didnt get the impression Dredd was a sadistic bastard, at any point in the film, only ever a driven one.
Dredd's line to Anderson about not being able to execute somebody on only a 99% probability - or words to that effect, told you a great deal, as did Dredd's response, when Anderson sorta sugested cutting Kay loose later on. So, Kay was dragged along, no doubt, putting them at greater risk and almost certainly slowing them down.

[Spaceghost]

I can excuse the film a few liberties with Mega City law.

In the comics, there is no real death penalty except under extreme circumstances - in the world of the film it's a necessary measure.

Similarly, the Judges wouldn't use 'torture' to extract a confession (although some of the scenes we've witnessed featuring Dredd interrogating prisoners have been pretty close to a form of torture - particularly during the Total War story during which a man is drugged to death during a failed atempt to extract information), but, again, in the world of the film it is deemed to be within the law, particularly given the circumstances Dredd finds himself in.

The law is more brutal in the film but so is MC-1 in general.

[Steve Green]

A knock at the door was 30 odd years ago when it was primarily a comic for children, there have been plenty of instances of Dredd sailing pretty close to torture in the strip, and executions more recently than that.

After the bombs has depictions of one of the Total War lot obviously been beaten rather than just drugged.

The reason for not executing or stringing it out is more to do with keeping interesting characters around, Orlok, PJ Maybe etc. than anything soft on the part of Justice Department.

As for the slomo bit, I read it as Dredd using it to help delay the detonator rather than something vindictive.

[Fisticuffs]

Look at the Apoc' War, Dredd and other Judges herd Sov sympathisers into a pit and execute the lot. Having him punch and headbutt a suspect in order to gain possibly critical information is small fry by comparison.