By: debbie lynn elias
I admit it. I was “dredding” this reimagination of DREDD. Not too impressed with the 1995 Sylvester Stallone version, Judge Dredd, it seemed impossible to breathe life, let alone new life, into this dystopian fiction and infuse it with appealing elements. Boy was I wrong. DREDD 3D is everything one could hope for and more. This is what fun and fantasy is all about. This is how you turn a comic book/graphic novel into a film. Technology meets fantasy meets graphic novel for a rip-roaring action packed thrill ride that will blow your mind with some of the most impressive visuals ever seen on screen thanks to cinematographic genius Anthony Dod Mantle and director Pete Travis.
Nuclear holocaust has destroyed America as we now know it. After decades of rebuilding, the result is Mega-City One, a huge sprawl of a city that extends the length of the eastern seaboard from Boston to Washington, D.C. More crowded than a can of sardines, most of the population lives below poverty levels in 200+ story high towers called “blocks”. Within each block is essentially a contained city with doctors, dentists, stores, Starbucks, shoemakers, clothiers, adult video stores, etc. Crime runs rampant throughout Mega-City One, and within each tower – especially Peach Trees – fear and death are the watchwords of the day. The judicial system is now self-contained, melding with law enforcement to create “Judges”. These judges are police, judge, jury and executioner with decisions made on the spot with unprecedented immediacy and calculated coldness.
One of the most dreaded judges is Dredd. Powerful, strong and effective, he is the one feared not only by criminals, but by fellow judges. His ethics and ability to distinguish between right and wrong and dispense justice is more than well known.
Currently under attack from within, Mega-City is being over-run not by gangs, but by a new drug, Slo-Mo, and is associated effects. Inhaled through a bong or crack pipe looking device with an asthma atomizer mouthpiece (drug paraphernalia doesn’t seem to have progressed that much in the future), one hit and Slo-Mo puts everything into slow motion at a rate equal to 1% of real time. Interesting is that with the advent of Slo-Mo, there is only one gang left as a major player in the city – that belonging to Ma-Ma.
With Ma-Ma’s base of operations at Peach Trees, it stands to reason that when three skinned bodies that splatter on the concrete floor in the middle of the atria in this 200 story building are undoubtedly her handiwork. Dredd, and his rookie partner Cassandra Anderson, go in to investigate. Problematic for Dress, however, is that Anderson is unproven, mediocre at best and is only a judge thanks to her powerful psychic ability. And on today, of all days, Dredd must evaluate and rate Anderson.
Quickly learning that Ma-Ma is the one engineering and supplying the Slo-Mo – and the woman behind the most recent deaths (this is one of her standard MO’s) – Dredd and Anderson want her, want her big time. With one of her minions in the custody of Dredd and Anderson, Ma-Ma panics, knowing that they will get him to talk. Putting the entire complex on lockdown, it becomes an explosive game of cat and mouse between Ma-Ma and Dredd/Anderson with one goal – kill or be killed.
Karl Urban rocks it s Judge Dredd. Helmeted the entire time, he is shrouded in mystery, anonymity and “disposability” – no personal connections – everyone and everything is expendable and replaceable. Yet, Urban still gives Dredd a sense of humanity. His droll Stallone-type monosyllabic clipped unemotional but terse delivery is deliciously rich and fuels the humor of some of the very tongue-in-cheek dialogue.
As Anderson, Olivia Thirlby not only surprised me with her physicality, but gives Anderson fearful intelligence, outright smarts and kindness. Thirlby perfectly blends head and heart in creating Anderson.
Lena Headey is a surprising, but effective, casting move. As Ma-Ma, she is thoughtful in her execution of evil making her calculating, contemptible and loathsome, but a worthy adversary not to be underestimated. Headey uses timing and extended pause to her advantage in creating the essence of Ma-Ma, punctuating devious moments with explosive rage. In short, it gets really fun to watch her at full tilt rage.
Best known as Ron Weasley’s brother Bill in the Harry Potter films, Domhnall Gleeson gives DREDD 3D an interesting tone as Ma-Ma’s twitchy computer geek “Clan Techie.” With a computerized bright blue lens as an eye, Gleeson is the personification of fear itself, personalizing and giving a face to the blight and plight of the citizens of Mega-City One and Peach Trees. He is riveting to watch.
Written by Alex Garland and directed by Pete Travis, DREDD 3D is visceral, edgy, fascinating, fantastical graphic novel realization that is visually stunning, technically mesmerizing, replete with non-stop action, even taut tension and drama, not to mention breathtaking cinematography by Dod Mantle and SFX/CGI that is a mind-blowing showstopper. And the humor??? Very very very tongue-in-cheek funny. And the action? To-die-for. (Pun definitely intended!)
But it’s thanks to the visuals that Pete Travis is able to immerse us in the world of DREDD 3D. He puts us right in the middle of the atrium at Peach Trees. Confined and contained within one specific encased area, you feel the dirt and grunge. So palpable is it that you cringe in your seat trying to “step over it” or around it. Smoggy smoke-filled horizons are so textured that they make you feel the weight of the air around you as you watch the film. The confinement of a “one structure building” also serves to ratchet up the tension of the cat-and-mouse pursuits of Dredd versus Ma-Ma. Interesting is Mark Digby’s production design and creation of the Mega-City with the symmetrically placed high-rises looming 200 stories in the air. While futuristic, it’s believable and within the acceptability of a rational person in today’s world.
Helping root the film in the present so that we make the believable jump into the graphic novel aspects of DREDD 3D is costuming, hair & make-up and vehicles. Cars are something we’d see on the road today while law enforcement vehicles are more futuristic and we do get a glimpse of one x-wing fighter type vehicle in the sky. Clothing is 2012 off the rack. Current accepted stereotypes are put into play with gang tattoos, heavy rapper type jewelry on the African-American gang members. Class system is well displayed. But then you get the really cool judge outfits and the weaponry! BEYOND AWESOME artillery both for the good guys and bad guys! But what really gives me a chuckle are those Slo-Mo drug pipes. Looking like present day bongs and crack pipes, but clear, and with a medicinal asthma atomizer mouthpiece attached, I find it quite entertaining that the drug culture has not advanced with its everyday tools. Even the Slo-Mo lab looks like “professional meth labs” of today.
But the real winner here is the cinematography of the award-winning Anthony Dod Mantle. Long an admirer of his work, when I last spoke with Dod about another film he had just finished, he was working on DREDD 3D. When he told me then that he would have something “spectacular” for me to see with DREDD 3D he wasn’t kidding! A mind-blowing blend of exquisitely powerful lighting and lensing with SFX, CGI, color saturation and never-before-seen slow-motion styling, the result is AWESOME BEYOND AWESOME and heralds a beauty that is compelling and striking. Beads of water covered with minute soap bubble slowly fly up into the air at a rate so slowly (as if actually 1% of real time), it feels as if time is stopping, indelibly searing each nanosecond into your brain. Blood splatter pumping from a body is seen beading, spreading, tortuously. (DREDD 3D is by no means for the faint of heart.) Light dances on specks of glass like sparkling snowflakes. By embracing depth as opposed to horizontal and vertical frame, Mantle developed a complex lensing system, allowing for multi-layering within a scene that provides a futuristic viscerality. The disconnect and disorientation created by the interruption of the time-space continuum with the use of not only slow-motion but close-up slow-motion 3D is beyond inspired creativity on the part of Mantle and pushes DREDD 3D into the visual and emotional stratosphere. The frenetic polished urgency that Mantle brings to a film melds perfectly with 3D technology. And let me say, DREDD 3D is a film that MUST be seen in 3D. This is one of the rare instances – and the way it should always be – where the film is designed for 3D and utilizes the technology to its utmost and not as a gimmick. The 3D close-ups with super saturation of color are powerful and dynamic and mouth-agape beautiful. Now THIS has all the hallmarks of Oscar’s golden touch.
The Judge has spoken. A directed verdict for First Degree Action-Packed Thrills!! DREDD 3D is a “dreddfully” delicious delight.
Judge Dredd – Karl Urban
Rookie Anderson – Olivia Thirlby
Ma-Ma – Lena Headey
Clan Techie – Domhnall Gleeson
Directed by Pete Travis. Written by Alex Garland.
