I've Been Dredding This..

In this review I am to become the Judge, Jury, and Executioner. 24 hours after seeing the film I’m still undecided to whether I actually enjoyed the film. Don’t get me wrong, it didn’t bore me or leave me disenchanted. I went into the film with low expectations and for this reason I knew that it would be your typical special effects motivated action film with a lack of narrative or character progression buth that didn’t really affect me and In fact I enjoyed the gratuitous violence and special effects all the more. The one thing the film did right was its use of slow motion 3D. I have always been a staunch critic of the use of 3D in cinema. The only film I think that has gotten it right so far was Jackass 3D, the reason? Slow Motion 3D, something which I haven’t seen too many films use since. Whether through luck or genius the inclusion of the drug slo-mo to the motion (yes, it’s an awful lazy name), helped ensure the application of slow motion 3D throughout the film. 

Having watched and enjoyed the original Judge Dredd many times of the years I was a bit sceptical of Karl Urban’s portrayal of the character, but his performance completely won me over. His rough ready, emotionless performance even led me to completely forgot he was Eomer one of my favourite characters in Lord of the Rings, which was a welcome relief in a film in so few characters, one bad performance had the potential to ruin the film and unfortunately I think this is what happened. The major disappointment of the film was the lack of a decent arch-villain for Dredd to face off with. Lena Headey’s role as the ex-prostitute turn gang leader was a very weak and frankly a bit boring. Don’t get me wrong I love Lena in her role as the deluded maniacal Queen Cersi in the Game of Thrones TV series. But this role just didn’t suit her personality or her acting ability.

The final disappointment was that for a film that is clearly aimed at young males (9 males under 30 was the audience), I don’t think the film did enough to appeal to this sort of audience, maybe trying to make it appeal more universal in the process. Consequently there was very little female sex appeal or nudity. Bless Olivia Thirlby; although it’s the most attractive I have ever seen her, my god the blonde hair! (Never really noticed hair before on a woman in that way, but hers I really got to me). She isn’t really attractive enough to pull off the sexy sidekick, these films stereotypically have. With no other eye candy the film was distinctly lacking in this department.

 So the Final Scores are…..

 ** 2/5 Stars

Pros: Slow Motion 3D Work

Cons: Lack of comedy, nudity & sex appeal.