Dredd articles in magazines

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I might as well post these pieces here 

Both pictures are by Steve Green of Judge Minty fame!

The Courier


Daily Record

[strontium71]

This months Fantasy Artist #38

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Cheers for that, I shall buy it tomorrow

[COMMANDO FORCES]

SciFiNow #76 £4.80

This (as mentioned elsewhere) has a 4 page article covering the DVD/Bluray release and it's on pages 74/77.

It gives the film a 4* rating and the extras seem to get the same 4*, which is because they seem to be reviewing the American version. This is obvious because they list the extras at the start. Apart from that tiny glitch, this is an excellent piece. A decent write up of the film with some extra bits to help us lot out.

Are you ready? You look ready
The film is full of little throwaway mentions to delight the fans.

It then has 8 pictures and tells you the reasons. The pictures are of Peach Trees, Sternhammer, Minty, Elysium, Block Party, Hotties, Judge Death and Fergee.

Another piece is called Gaze into the fist of Dredd and this is about references from the comic in the film and then it lists 9. Now I would list them but it would spoil the fun when you buy your copy or read it on the shelves. I recommend buying it, as it's extremely positive and fun piece and I don't want to see Smiths go under

[dweezil2]

Complimentary write up in today's weekly TV guide from right wing, fascist bully boys, the Daily Mail where they give Dredd a very respectably four out of five stars, ahead of it's Sky premier.
Also features a small fact fluff piece on the great Karl Urban.

[Goaty]

Complimentary write up in today's weekly TV guide from right wing, fascist bully boys, the Daily Mail where they give Dredd a very respectably four out of five stars, ahead of it's Sky premier.
Also features a small fact fluff piece on the great Karl Urban.

Yep was to post about that. That's good but sadly the review in 20 words was about Stallone's Dredd than British comic 2000AD!

[dweezil2]

Complimentary write up in today's weekly TV guide from right wing, fascist bully boys, the Daily Mail where they give Dredd a very respectably four out of five stars, ahead of it's Sky premier.
Also features a small fact fluff piece on the great Karl Urban.

Yep was to post about that. That's good but sadly the review in 20 words was about Stallone's Dredd than British comic 2000AD!

At least they said Dredd was better than the Stallone flick! Could of been worse.
And 2000AD does get a mention. There's a couple of info boxes regarding the Sky premier on Friday Goaty!   

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

http://skymovies.sky.com/dredd/review

Link to a fairly even handed review. Comparisons with 'The Raid' inevitably creep in but they say DREDD is definitely worth a view.

[SKD]

 RadioTimes has a short 4 star review for Dredd's Sky Premiere outing, calling it an "explosive comic book adaptation..." and stating that "It's a more faithful take on the character..." There is also a little pic of Dredd and Anderson. RT online has a much bigger picture and a longer, very positive review. 
http://www.radiotimes.com/film/ncxx2/dredd

Stew.

[Spikes]

Nice article, though they couldnt resist mentioning the Raid, 
Move on Radio Times, move on!

[Muon]

The constant references to the Raid annoy me more and more as time goes on, especially now I've seen the film. One, aside from having vaguely similar bare bones to their stories. For both films, the "trapped in a building" thing is just a canvas on which they paint two entirely different pictures. It's just as ridiculous as claiming that Looper stole the idea of time travel from Back to the Future. And that's even before you realize that Dredd was made BEFORE the Raid. Two, I just don't get these critics who claim that The Raid is somehow "better" than Dredd. It has more spectacular hand-to-hand fighting scenes, I'll give them that - even though the Raid is a martial arts film and those scenes are pretty much its central premise. But Dredd is has far more interesting characters and is far more visually stunning, atmospheric and emotionally affecting and gives much more of a sense that the film is set in a fascinating world ripe for exploration. To me, comparing the two and claiming the Raid is somehow superior is just a lazy cop-out by critics who've convinced themselves that foreign-language films are always more worthy than "Hollywood" films - even though Dredd is an independent made out of the Hollywood system on a limited budget and therefore just as worthy of praise and support as any other non-Hollywood effort.

[Rusty]

The most absurd comparisons between the two films I've read was that certain critics seemed to have not only thought The Raid was the better of the two (matter of opinion so I'll give them that) but for some mad reason, they've stated that The Raid somehow looked a more polished production whereas Dredd looked cheaper. They can have their opinion of which is better, but that one just baffles me.

[Mabs]

However good The Raid may be, it is still lacking something to give it that extra wow factor. And that certain something is Judge Dredd.

[Muon]

The most absurd comparisons between the two films I've read was that certain critics seemed to have not only thought The Raid was the better of the two (matter of opinion so I'll give them that) but for some mad reason, they've stated that The Raid somehow looked a more polished production whereas Dredd looked cheaper. They can have their opinion of which is better, but that one just baffles me.

Yeah, just looking back at my post from the other day it seems like I'm railing on critics purely for disagreeing with me (not to mention the numerous typos and grammatical errors - but to be fair on me I was writing on my iPhone during my lunch hour at work).

The kind of thing you mentioned is what annoys me. I really liked the Raid, but reading some of the more highbrow critics gush about it and then sneer at Dredd in the same sentence makes me unsure of whether to laugh or cry (maybe both would be better). For one thing, it's almost as if they've never seen a martial arts film and they're so surprised that films actually exist where people beat the crap out of each other in really inventive ways and do spectacular stunts while doing it. I guess when I was devouring those kinds of movies in my early teens they were all nodding thoughtfully in front of Truffaut films in darkened rooms.

I don't mean to pick on any particular critics, but this review of the Raid in the Guardian is full of examples of what I'm talking about:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/may/17/the-raid-review

One of my favourite bits: "Occasionally, prior to killing or dismembering someone, a combatant will run up a wall and flip over backwards, surreally like Donald O'Connor." 

Like it's some kind of breathtaking innovation and like every single martial arts movie ever made hasn't had at least a few scenes of people running up walls and doing backflips. And I love how the only thing he can think of comparing it to is a critically acclaimed musical from the golden age of Hollywood (I looked up Donald O'Connor and found that he's one of the leads in Singin' in the Rain).

Here's another favourite: "The building itself appears to exist in a sort of expressionist-realist universe: the exterior looks like a digital creation, and the interiors, with their endless shabby corridors, are like a bad dream." 

Right. Yeah, I'm sure Gareth Evans said to the set designers and effects supervisors that everything had to look like it "exists in a sort of expressionist-realist universe." I'm sure it wasn't more like: "make me a shabby building that looks like criminals live in it."

It galls me that people can waffle so pretentiously about the Raid and read so much into it yet somehow ignore all of the thought and artistry that clearly went into Dredd. While great fun, the Raid is clearly not the most visually striking or artistic film out there, and to be fair on the makers, that clearly wasn't on their minds anyway. In contrast, the makers of Dredd obviously worked their butts off on a shoestring budget to bring viewers a whole new visual experience, particularly in the beautifully captured slow-mo sequences. And then there's Judge Dredd, and all the characterization of Anderson and Ma-ma, and the great music, and the vivid world-building, and, and...     

[Rusty]

Agree with everything you wrote there. Growing up watching, Jackie Chan's earlier films, The Raid seemed to leave a lesser impression on me than what it did on a lot of these critics. By the end of the film, I was feeling somewhat jaded by the lack of progression in the story, and fatigued by the overly long fighting sequences. Yes, they were well done, but there's only so many ways you can stab a person or punch someone in the face before it get's boring.

Jackie Chan certainly knows this, and that is why when you watch his early films, they are full of incredible stunts and inventive uses of the surroundings to make every fight scene entertaining and fresh. The Raid never had this. It was more brutal than Chan's films, yes; but then again, compared to Dredd  in that department, it looked like Disney.

Anyway, it's not my intention to rip the film to shreds. I enjoyed The Raid, certainly. It puts most of Hollywood's big budget action shitfests to shame. But that is one of the reasons why, or at least I think where, critics get their wires crossed. They assumed Dredd was a Hollywood remake of a piss poor flop that was so close to The Raid's bare bones premise that they thought it was just the usual rip-off of a hip and cool foreign action film, and we all know that well made foreign non-English speaking films are trendy. If you haven't watched them, you deserve to burn for being a philistine. I think Dredd was simply a victim of this. If Lionsgate had have marketed it properly like they should have by advertising it as a film made by the same people as District 9 and 28 Days Later prior to release, then maybe critics would have had a different mentality going into watching it.