Just got back from seeing it. I enjoyed it. It's a solid Judge Dredd movie, much closer to the flavor of the comics - it's not for kids. I'm pretty sure the R is just for the blood and violence (it's pretty gory in a couple of small bits, and I'm not sure its satire). It will help erase the previous celluloid version, if you were contaminated by it. Karl Urban is pretty good at Dredd. I saw it in 3D and it was decent (i'm not really a fan of the 3D stuff), but only really effective in a few scenes, but I think it helped in those (when people are on the drug). I really liked this version of Mega City One: craptacular urban area with big arcology-type complexes that hold 80,000 people. But there's still a sun and the city has daylight (from the earlier movie, you'd think it was all underground except for the Cursed Earth bits).
Saw it Monday and I agree with pretty much all your review. I'm really glad they decides to go with a "day in the life of Dredd" focus instead of trying to cram the entire history of the character into one movie. I read somewhere that they've said if they clear the budget ($50mil) and make money, they plan to do at least a second as well as third film. I hope they do.
Given the screenwriter's previous credits for 28 Days Later, Sunshine, and Never Let Me Go? Color me intrigued by what seems to be an actual scifi screenwriter for a Dredd movie. I'm looking forward to this.
I've been vaguely aware of Judge Dredd and what he is, but have never actually seen more than an isolated panel of the comic. The problem I'm having with the trailers is that it looks like a fairly generic action film set in an unusual background.
Pretty much agreed. The film needed to be a bit less subtle with the satire. A friend of mine who didn't know the comics thought it was being played completely straight. I think it's a minor flaw that the film is set up in such a way as to put you behind Dredd without hinting more than obliquely (the face-off, the opening chase scene) that Dredd is not really someone you should support beyond a basic aggression-release level. He's clearly a fascist and so on but it's less clear how the film makers intend you to feel about him; maybe I'm over thinking it. Megacity One is actually Johannesburg with some very careful additions. Making it a real, living, and somewhat broken city was a brilliant stroke and it ensures that the look of the film is tied together perfectly. In fact, in terms of providing a gritty, realistic sci-fi world I think Dredd is going to be the film to beat (note: Ridley Scott based some of his designs on 2000AD). Otherwise I enjoyed it. None of the actors are bad, and Karl Urban's chin does some heavy scowling and great one-liners. Addendum: I will be interested to see if it takes off in America. Dredd's a British satire of (a perception of) America with a lot of very black humour in it; doesn't that sort of thing typically play poorly to US audiences?
Robocop did very well here, but the satire was very heavy handed. I, personally, had no idea that Dredd was satire, and the trailers are not hinting of that at all. I'm pretty sure that the Stallone film was played straight, because the idea of judge-jury-executioner is something Americans love. Which is no doubt what the comic is poking fun at - as I said, I've never seen it.
Modified Poe's Law: a good satire of extremism is indistinguishable from a display of extremism. Dredd expects you to understand just from watching this man and thinking about what he does that he is a bad person and the values he espouses are not worthwhile, although given the circumstances it may well actually be a lesser evil. The film plays itself so straight that although the characters are clear and wonderfully drawn, the makers only hint at how you're supposed to view the characters. There are definitely clues in there as to what we're supposed to see in them as I said (particularly one scene), but maybe the makers were such big fans of the comics that they made a few assumptions that maybe they shouldn't have done. The critics that are positive do seem to be big 2000AD fans, and it was one of Sight&Sound's four highlighted films this month (Kim Newman review). As an aside, the Daily Mail reviewer basically complained that it was fascist in what is a truly fantastic piece of irony, although he did hit upon my worry (he missed the satire completely). I don't have massive experience with Dredd/2000AD, only a few issues and a friend who loved it and had every issue, plus the usual scant research I do of an established character before I see a film about them (not necessarily a good thing). Also, hey, Wood Harris is in it. It's also a good film. I recommend going to see it. If you want a really quick and not entirely accurate precis of it, think of a sci-fi Batman without the morals.
The satire will probably fly well over a lot of people's heads, in a manner similar to Starship Troopers.
I haven't seen Dredd, but the satire in Starship Troopers was really obvious (almost, but not quite, overdone). The satire btw is what made the film way better than the book. THERE, I SAID IT! Way better.
78% on the tomatometer for sci fi usually means it has potential when cross-referenced with Broken-type buzz. Thanks for pointing this out as I wouldn't have given it a second look despite enjoying the Stallone movie.
You say "but" but you're not really contradicting Brandon's point. The satire is clear, *and* many were still oblivious as to which level of it was intentional and which was "bad" filmmaking. Of course, when you talk about it online you tend to draw in the far worse "betrayal of Heinlein" types, but by and large most people seem to think of it as low production value sci fi.
As an aside, it was charting at 85%+ approval for the first couple of weeks of release. It looks like a wave of recent reviews brought it down. The critics have been really liking it and it's been getting quite some buzz from them. I believe it was the top film in the box office charts in the UK on release weekend, likely partly down to the critical response. As long as they're custard. I know. Also looking it up on their website is a great expose of the vapidity of modern life. Seriously, use the Daily Mail search tool for Dredd, the top hit was a photo article focusing on some pneumatic, enhanced woman at the première. Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby were relegated to third in the pictures. Alan: sadly not.
I think I only ever argued about Starship Troopers with the "betrayal of Heinlein" crowd, I wasn't aware that many people were just completely oblivious. And from the trailer and this thread I got the impression that Dredd was a bit subtler. But I take your point, and I'll see for myself when the film comes out around here (this should go in the nerdrage thread, but why can't Hollywood dub the damn movies while they are still in production?).
You do have to admit getting the license to a book so you could shit on it was a dick move. In any case, my problem with Starship Troopers has more to do with Denise Richards and how awful she was than whether it followed the book. That wasn't satire; that was just Denise Richards. Doogie Howser did a pretty good job as a Nazi, though.
Sometimes movie rights pass through several hands, I know this was definitely the case with Total Recall, it's possible/probable that was the case with Starship Troopers. Tales From Development Hell is a great book on the subject, and goes over the very tortuous path films take to their destination.
I Kindle Sampled that one. It wasn't interesting enough for me to want to read the whole book, but I did get some idea of how everyone wants to add their own little revision to the script, from producer to director to stars.
I'm sure there will be lots of people who come out of Dredd not thinking of it as satire, mostly because many people simply don't get satire - they only get blatant mocking and other straightforward forms of humor. Plenty of people will leave thinking that the Judges are the inevitable and preferable end to a world overrun with crime because the film is from Dredd's point of view, and that's exactly how he sees it.
I had no intention of seeing Dredd until reading a lot of people praising it yesterday. I just got back, and I liked it, although I'm not 100% convinced I "got" it, or even if there were something there to get. After seeing Verhoeven mentioned, I kept expecting it to turn into Robocop-style over-the-top satire, but it was so under-played that I managed to just enjoy it as an action movie. And all three of the leads were just terrific -- I was skeptical seeing Karl Urban's performance praised, since it looked like he didn't have to do much other than frown and spout the occasional one-liner. But he really made it all work. Still, I disagree with Kirian because I don't think that under-playing it was a mistake, and I don't consider it a criticism. I don't think it's the filmmaker's responsibility to make it abundantly obvious how they feel about what they're showing you; it's fine to leave it up to interpretation as long as you demonstrate enough intelligence to indicate that there is some thought that went into it. Contrast it with something like Sucker Punch, which tried to do the whole audience-as-voyeur thing, but was so clumsy and frankly dumb that it didn't warrant any deep interpretation. Personally, I'm fine with the makers of Dredd leaving it up to the audience to make their own conclusions about fascism -- or even to just watch it as an action movie and make no conclusions at all -- because the rest of the movie wasn't dumb. One question for when I was in the bathroom: I dunno about that. I think ultimately Starship Troopers (which I completely and unapologetically love) is 100% a Paul Verhoeven movie. That means that he absolutely hates every single one of the characters and spends the entire movie torturing them. By that measure, Denise Richards and Casper Van Dien (and mini-Busey) were perfect casting, since they're pretty, vapid people you don't mind seeing abused. Kind of like Shelly Duvall in The Shining. I can understand someone who's attached to the book (I've never read it) being disappointed that the movie version was played for over-the-top satire. But I wouldn't call it a "dick move" any more than a straightforward satire that didn't get the license. In my opinion, it's far more offensive to take the license to something and miss the point of it entirely -- like with the 90s version of Judge Dredd. Say what you will about Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, but the one thing you can't accuse him of is not understanding what the novel was saying.
No. No, I don't. Don't write stirring tributes to fascism if you don't want people with a sense of history to give them their due. It's good science fiction and it could be played straight, but this is a great way to memorialize Heinlein's Bircher period. It is possible to enjoy Heinlein without trying to shield his legacy from legitimate critiques, and more people should try it. Well, that's silly. Apart from casting two of my favorite top of the line B actors (Brown and Ironsides), his choices for the other characters are the equivalent of a Literal Genie reading of Heinlein's characterizations. It's fine if you have a tin ear for scixploitation films, as they're not for everyone and sometimes it's a bridge too far if you like the source material. He was fine but as with the other barely-actors, it was a stretch to get them to have anything but the most minimal adherence to basic stage directions. I like the guy, mind you, and he's well-suited for sitcoms, but you're not strengthening your Denise Richards argument.
Which is fair enough, I personally think it was fine. I was just letting people know it's not a hysterical portrayal of fascism so they may want to go with people who 'get' it. I still think it is a flaw in a film that one of the key parts to it, the satirising-through-demonstration of the police state, can be easily missed by people not being familiar with the character or not picking up a couple of subtle clues. It's more of an issue because in the world of Dredd, the Judges are the natural conclusion and probably the lesser evil and people might seize on that and think the film-makers are promoting the values of Dredd. I've seen some reviews actually take that tack (and some compare it to The Raid, which is a bit odd). I agree it's not their responsibility to tell audiences what to think, and respecting the intelligence of the audience is one of the key components of a good film. I'm just a little nervous that with material like Dredd, you can miss something that's so important. Agreed on Karl Urban's performance, too. He takes a one-note character and plays that note beautifully. As to what's there to get? Probably not that much. It's an 'intelligent' action film, but not in the style best described as Nolan-esque. It's a B-movie with a moderately-sized brain. Nowt wrong wi' that.
Thanks for putting this on my radar, I wasn't completely oblivious to the fact that this movie even existed and by the sounds of it I'll enjoy it.
Word, LK. God knows I love Heinlein's writing, but anybody who wrote Farnham's Freehold is not immune to criticism. This I will disagree with. Neil Patrick Harris comes across as the only actor in the movie who's in on the joke.
Lots and lots of people still manage to miss the point, as evidenced even in this thread (although Gus seems to only be missing the point of some of the things that went into Starship Troopers's greatness, at least).
A side note that puts Dredd in my personal 'awesome' category, not once but twice playing bits of the Matt Berry's theme of Snuff Box in the background.
Box Office Mojo reports the movie 'bombed' at the U.S. box office this weekend and then went on about how unreliable 'fanboys' are.
Since I'm pretty sure there's been no modern Judge Dredd product readily available in US comic book stores in the last decade (outside of maybe some trades on the shelves), and really longer than that (I've never seen 2000 AD on shelves outside of some brief American versions), if they were hoping for fanboi number, I'm pretty sure most of them were at Comic-Con. They have to build the brand here. It has to stand on its own.
I would also blame the trailer which, to me at least, looked like some over-the-top run-of-the-mill explosion porn.
Ok, finally watched it. It's not the best movie ever but the portrayal of Dredd himself was absolutely pitch perfect. They could have given him another scene or two to highlight the fascism but still, as an old Judge Dredd fan I was very happy with this movie. Anderson was actually pretty good too, I did not expect much from her but she was solid and competent. No glaring plot holes or hand-waving either. Dredd never takes off his helmet. That fact alone makes me unreasonably happy.
Rented this tonight, it was awesome. One of the prettiest action movie's I've seen. I really enjoyed how. The framing of scenes was like frames from a graphic novel.
I just saw it recently as well, and the helmet was key. Pity it was such a bust at the box office; I really liked the casting of the main villain and the "heroes", and the whole thing was remarkably well done.
I thought I liked it but too many things just fizzled out in a "well that's the end of that character / plot point" way, often very predictably (Wood Harris's character for example). And the style, which started strong, sort of dropped off. I thought it worked best when it was sort of almost a music video and the pacing felt natural, and they were doing their trippy drug thing fairly effectively, but all of that fell away to a more paint by numbers action conclusion. On the subject of music videos I liked that Vitalic track early on, (and some of the other music) but I hate it when I run into songs I love right at the intersection of electro, house, EDM (and in this case, disco?) only to find out that the rest of the artist's work / album tracks aren't as poppy or aren't that odd trashy/awesome mix of sounds. Case in point.
Apparently it's doing ok in dvd/blu ray sales, although it's impossible to interpret the marketing derp and the shitty journalism derp from here.
Good to hear. I don't think they're going to make up the shortfall, to be honest, but it did open at the top of the UK (technically the domestic market for Dredd) box office and stick in the top ten for the second week. I'm hoping, but realistic about it, that producers see that and take a punt at making a second one.
I likewise only recently got around to this, and really enjoyed it. I loved how they played it completely straight, without a bludgeoning hand on the satire and utterly fubar dystopia. Crime rate being so high that only a slim percentage ever got responded to, pointing to total societal dysfunction, entirely unreasonable Law, or both--but never hammering on that point beyond the quick mention. The quick line about how Anderson was an orphan, so of course got tested for potential Judgedom. And of course how clearly it came across that Dredd was an incredibly tightly-wound functional psychopath, who's just "good" inasmuch as his psychopathy happens to laser-focus through the lens of The Law--but at no point did they have any clumsy Thematic Exposition Fulcrum character's poor actor have to try to deliver a "You're as bad as the criminals you judge!" or similar clunker of a line. Any winking at the camera was properly hidden by the helmet.
