Links to film reviews and reaction posts

[shaolin_monkey]

Blimey, don't know how you all missed that! It's clearly Anderson walking away, helmet under left arm, toward a group of bikes, with other Judges standing around. It's right at the end, just before a Judge goes roaring off up the motorway.

[SmallBlueThing]

Yeah, she comes out of peach trees, assumes she's failed, refuses med treatment then gets given a helmet and goes out on patrol. There's no attempt made to show a shift in time and it plays as she's just carrying on despite having failed. My wife assumed she'd read dredd's mind and knew she'd passed- but it's not at all clear. I read it as a more generic ending- 'anderson's story ends but the judges carry on because crime is relentless' sort of thing. Makes little sense, anyway.

SBT

[Danbo]

This is why I need the BluRay now 

[DrRocka]

slight ray of sunshine?

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/reject-recap-looper-saves-studio-sci-fi-dredd-sequel-suggestion-and-36-fantastic-fest-reviews.php

[Michaelvk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9eqs24ainQ

[The Sherman Kid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9eqs24ainQ

Thats the tonic we need

[junox]

IM GOING FOR   DREDD 3D  " SLEEPER HIT "
Okay start of video you think .... sh#t,  But  this, is a class review !!   I'm going to see  Movie  Again on Monday
support BRITISH COMIC 's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MtMzdTi-cY

[vzzbux]

I just dont understand  it. Dredd is swamped with positives over the net and media. Why is it below par in the Box Office?




V

[Jim_Campbell]

I just dont understand  it. Dredd is swamped with positives over the net and media. Why is it below par in the Box Office?

As I said with reference to Serenity: sometimes all the good reviews and positive word of mouth just won't get the general public to go and see the fucking thing. I'm assuming that Serenity was killed by the preconception that you had to have seen the TV series to enjoy it (despite all the reviews stressing that you didn't) and that Dredd has been hobbled by association with the shitty '95 movie (despite all the reviews stressing that it had nothing to with the Stallone movie).

At the risk of engaging the ire of Psychogoatee, I also think that there is something intrinsic to Dredd at a fundamental level that fails to connect with a US audience, in particular.

This is something that I've been turning over in my head... after all, Dredd is Dirty Harry, Dredd is Robocop. Culturally, it interests me to try and discern what it is that being created for British comics changes the character so fundamentally that he fails to connect with US collective psyche in the way that Callahan or Murphy do.

I have a theory: Harry is a loner, asserting his own moral code through the barrel of a gun in the face of an ineffective and largely uncaring establishment; Murphy is a man regaining and asserting his own identity in the face of immoral and corrupt big business who have become the establishment.

These are riffs on the frontier myth: one man stands alone; the sweat of his brow and the gun in his hand define his identity and the individual defines the nation.

Dredd does not defy the establishment: Dredd is the establishment. The American Dream has failed, government is all-powerful and the people, by and large, don't much care. Dredd is the iron fist of the evil establishment against which Murphy and Callahan rail.

There is a fatalistic acceptance underpinning Dredd that I think is very British and translating that to a US audience requires them, as their very first act in engaging with the fictional world of Dredd, to accept that people will effectively hand power to authoritarianism and basically not care very much what the Judges do as long as it's not them being beaten to a pulp.

It seems obvious to me two nations are likely to have very different attitudes to the structures of power when one can trace a fairly linear evolution of the current system of government from the 14th Century to the present, whilst the other was cut pretty much from whole cloth 230 years ago as the result of an act of outright rebellion.

I'm not sure you can reconcile the two within the fictional construct that is Dredd, though.

Cheers

Jim

[Fisticuffs]

Interesting take on it, and I think that you are right to a large extent. British sci-fi is always quite a dark and depressing affair, look at Warhammer 40,000 for example, a thoroughly british invention and also incredibly bleak and unforgiving.

I think that Americans secretly long for the shining ray of hope at the end of the tunnel, the paragon of virtue to come in and save the day, look at the mainsream US comics, Superman etc, as examples of this. (Yes I'm aware the US comic market is huge, but the most popular titles are all do-gooder heroes battling obvious evils). Whereas British readers are more than content to be presented with a situation where there is indeed little to no hope and the world really has gone to hell in a handcart.

[Gonk]

Bah! Box office schmox office! People will always carry on constructing beautiful films which Dredd is shining example of. If the critics and the rest of the world are a bit slow in recognising such raging beauty,heyn what's new?

[TordelBack]

It seems obvious to me two nations are likely to have very different attitudes to the structures of power when one can trace a fairly linear evolution of the current system of government from the 14th Century to the present, whilst the other was cut pretty much from whole cloth 230 years ago as the result of an act of outright rebellion.

And yet this tension - paternalistic authoritarianism versus individual choice - is what has driven the strip since at least Origins.  Maybe since Oz, or even the Dem march.  At  the level of character, Dredd has increasingly functioned as an outsider within Justice Dept., the lone voice no-one ever heeds until it's too late.  Even when he was on the Council his advice was largely ignored.  How many times has he chucked his badge on the Chief's desk, McGonigle-style?  Of course that's the very tack the first movie took,

[JOE SOAP]

I also think that there is something intrinsic to Dredd at a fundamental level that fails to connect with a US audience, in particular.

This is something that I've been turning over in my head... after all, Dredd is Dirty Harry, Dredd is Robocop. Culturally, it interests me to try and discern what it is that being created for British comics changes the character so fundamentally that he fails to connect with US collective psyche in the way that Callahan or Murphy do.

It seems obvious to me two nations are likely to have very different attitudes to the structures of power when one can trace a fairly linear evolution of the current system of government from the 14th Century to the present, whilst the other was cut pretty much from whole cloth 230 years ago as the result of an act of outright rebellion.

I'm not sure you can reconcile the two within the fictional construct that is Dredd, though.

Except of course the film didn't do as well as expected in Britain or in some other countries either.


The loner-archetype v establishment-figure impediment is not convincing to me because of the surprising reactions I've observed from the US. All tending towards the very good to awesome end of the scale.

Not an exact science I know but there's a broad range of average punter reactions to be observed on message boards, twitter and youtube et al. No one mentions the set-up or background of the character as being off putting in any way - the gore is mentioned on a few - but there are several comments which are common to the vast majority of reviews:

"the trailer made this film look shit but when I saw the film it was a completely different film as to how it was sold." (this is the most common)

"I'm not seeing this, the trailer was horrible". .

"I didn't know this film existed, there was no promotion" (common too)

"There were only 2, or little more than, screenings at the theatre, they were all in the evening when every other film had at least 5 a day".

"It was in 3D with no 2D screenings. I'm not paying for 3D I hate it, why is it in 3D?"

"No major stars in any roles".

"That Stallone film was crap, why should I see this".

"Where's Stallone? It's not a Judge Dredd film without Stallone. I'm not watching this".


These comments suggest a disconnect between the promotion, a lack of awareness and the viewing format was too restrictive- none of the new films in the Top Ten that week were 3D.


Going back to the original cultural point. Dredd isn't really portrayed as being 'unheroic', there's still good guys v bad guys even if rather relativist - the trope remains - but he's still a rather laconic yet charismatic badass that you can root for regardless of what he represents.

I've read quite a few say they'd like to know more about the characters and also the fascist background of the Judges and that the film made them want to know more. This was the over-riding postive comment from those who've seen it and liked it, the film made them want to see sequels set in the wider context of Mega-City 1.


Everyone knew Dredd was not for the masses but the reason for its underperfomance, even in its target audience of 18-40 year old men, I don't believe is related to character.

[Jim_Campbell]

The loner-archetype v establishment-figure impediment is not convincing to me because of the surprising reactions I've observed from the US.

All fair points, Joe, but don't go very far to explain the wider failure of Dredd to gain traction in the US despite two films with radically different approaches to the subject matter, a computer game, a range of comics by one of the country's two biggest publishers and a reprint programme splashing some of the biggest names in US comics across the covers.

There's something here that seems more fundamental, to me.

Cheers

Jim

[BPP]

I can never understand that specific 'the trailer looked shvt' argument re Dredd. I thought the trailer looked great and was representative of the movie.