Story
Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings) puts a great frowny face in this film as Judge Dredd, an officer with power of judge, jury and executioner in the Mega-City One, in the futuristic United States. After finishing up a small job he heads back to HQ to find another assignment to train Judge Anderson, a newbie on field, played by Olivia Thirlby (The Darkest Hour). Sadly, this newbie chooses a small job which turns out to be a really bad mistake. She screws up big time when she and Dredd gets trapped inside a super-fortified building with a powerful gang named "Ma-Ma" on their tail.These two Judges have to fight their way up to the top of a 200-story building to defeat this gang and save themselves with no back up or any help from others, and with only few bullets left on their weapons. And they meet a lot of other surprises on the way, like super powerful chain guns.
First Impression
Half way through the movie, I've realized that this is just like The Raid: Redemption, but with guns. I think that's the best way to sum up the movie. Dredd 3D was great but somehow disappointing.
Good Stuff
One great thing about this film was that it's filled with bloody shooting actions. You will get to see a lot of heads blowing up into pieces. So, I can safely say that this is not just another superhero flick made aiming to entertain kids. Performance of Karl Urban was brilliant. I still remember watching 1995 Judge Dredd movie back when I was like 8-years-old and I believe Urban did a pretty good job replacing Sylvester Stallone.Even while staying trapped inside a giant building, Dredd manages to pull off few dry jokes and awesome moves, keeping the fun and excitement alive throughout the movie. Faces getting smashed into bits, hands blowing off, bad guys falling off the building, those were always fun to watch.
It's also a good thing to see the film directly jumping into the story without any long explanations of the characters, or the history. It saved up a lot of time.
Bad Stuff
Since Dredd 3D was scripted way before The Raid: Redemption, I've decided to rule out the fact that this is a rip-off. But, I still can't forget how much this film looks similar to that Indonesian movie, it's very disturbing. Although,Can't say I'm a fan of those super-slow-motion shooting scenes either. But, I bet it would have looked better in 3D.
Since Dredd sounded like a super awesome character, I expected to see more of his awesome actions, rather than the super-bad attitude and firing few shots off his cool gun. And, I still believe that the story is rather short and too simple. I was expecting to see a awesome story with a super villain. Instead, it was about Judge Dredd, doing his duty on just another day at work, killing ordinary thugs.
Still, I wish there was a chance to see more of the outside world of Mega-City One.
Conclusion
Yes, the story of Dredd 3D was disturbingly similar to The Raid. But, somehow it managed to live up to all the hype and its' legend, thanks to brutal gun fights, and the austere personality of the main character. All in all, this movie was very entertaining. And I wouldn't be surprised if they'd make a sequel to this film.Overall Rating
