Chris Reviews Dredd

When it was first announced that they were gonna take another stab at bringing Judge Dredd to film I was very much against it. I really have not had a chance to read the graphic novels and the last film while hilariously bad, did not leave me thinking they should try to make another film. That being said once I started hearing the details and saw the trailer I jumped on board and got excited. So was that excitement warranted or did I leave the theater wanting to kill myself? Read below to find out..... 

The Good-

There are several aspects of this movie that I loved. The first being Karl Urban as Dredd, he made the character much more believable and realistic while maintaining a certain level of humor. This movie definitely had a unique tone and style to it as well, which I really liked. It gave you a feeling that If this movie does well, some even cooler adventures could take place in this environment.  The action while not spectacular was pretty gory and helped give the film the gritty tone they were looking for and the SLO-MO sequences were actually pretty cool as well and probably looked awesome in 3D.

The Bad-

The main issue I had with this film was the story and how much it was ripped from The Raid. Not only did they rip the premise off from it, but they didn't even do it as well. The action sequences were fairly unspectacular and didn't really stand out, yes there was a lot of gore but mostly of the CGI variety. This film also felted very restrained to me as well, it felt like they wanted to do more but couldn't because of budget restrictions.

Summary-

There is not really anything blatantly bad and if you have not seen The Raid you will probably love this film. I just wish it had hit a little harder with some better choreographed fights but outside of that I really liked this film. I came out of it wanting to see a bigger budget, more epic sequel but I'm not sure its going to happen if it continues to flounder at the Box Office. All in all this is a solid end of summer action flick that is worth checking out.

MY RATING-

3.5 out of 5

Chris "Da Franchise" Hart