 ***PLEASE NOTE: A Blu-ray 3D disc is only compatible with 3D Blu-ray players.*** Tagline: Judgment is coming The future America is an irradiated wasteland. On its East Coast lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. The ultimate Judge, Dredd (Karl Urban) is tasked with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug and the sadistic prostitute turned drug pusher who is using it to take over the city. Storyline: The future America is an irradiated waste land. On its East Coast, running from Boston to Washington DC, lies Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis where criminals rule the chaotic streets. The only force of order lies with the urban cops called "Judges" who possess the combined powers of judge, jury and instant executioner. Known and feared throughout the city, Dredd is the ultimate Judge, challenged with ridding the city of its latest scourge - a dangerous drug epidemic that has users of "Slo-Mo" experiencing reality at a fraction of its normal speed. During a routine day on the job, Dredd is assigned to train and evaluate Cassandra Anderson, a rookie with powerful psychic abilities thanks to a genetic mutation. A heinous crime calls them to a neighborhood where fellow Judges rarely dare to venture - a 200 story vertical slum controlled by prostitute turned drug lord Ma-Ma and her ruthless clan... Written by Production Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, December 27, 2012 My wife is a huge Star Trek fan, so we have been wiling away our (few) free hours over the holiday break catching up on old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 2. While any given episode is of course full to bursting with various conflicts and tribulations, this series, like just about all of Gene Roddenberry's huge, sprawling franchise, posits a future where things have actually improved. That may not seem like such an incredible accomplishment, but just think about it for a moment: how many television shows or films can you think of which are set in the future where things are relatively rosy? Does The Jetsons count? (And in that show things aren't just "rosy," the robotic maid is named Rosie.) For some reason people who are drawn to writing about the future often color their predictions with calamities, dysfunction and outright catastrophe. This is nothing new, as readers of Nostradamus will concur, but even noted writers like H.G. Wells tended to err on the negative side of things with their predictive fiction like The Time Machine and Things to Come. This tendency toward dystopia has only increased with the so-called Age of Anxiety, as if we're projecting our deepest fears onto a yet unseen and unknown time to help us cope with the present. And so we come to Dredd, the 2012 reboot of the 2000AD comic Judge Dredd which was previously made in 1995 as a fairly lamentable Sylvester Stallone feature. Both Stallone and Dredd co- creator John Wagner are on record as voicing their disappointment (at a minimum) with the project. Stallone seems to think Judge Dredd missed the boat by not being more satirical, while Wagner seems to think the 1995 film had relatively little to do with his conception of the character to begin with. Aside from the similarity in titles and (not to state the obvious) the leading character, there's little else uniting these two films, and whatever else its flaws may be, this "new, improved" Dredd is a considerably sharper and better written adaptation than the Stallone vehicle. But forewarned is forearmed: the future in Dredd is anything but bright, so sunglasses are generally not needed, though a Judge's helmet (replete with shaded visor) is de rigeur. From the perspective of several basic premises, there are quite a few similarities between the 1995 Judge Dredd and this new version. Both follow the original source comic in setting their stories in a dystopian future made of metropolises called Mega Cities, with the actual locale being Mega City One, a sprawling oasis of sorts that spans the entire Eastern seabord and has been built on the ruins of an irradiated apocalyptic wasteland. Within these Mega Cities are huge skyscrapers called megablocks that house hundreds of thousands of people. Crime is rampant and the quasi-fascistic government has appointed Judges to handle it all. These "one stop shopping" judicial enforcement agents are not just judge, but also jury and executioner, dispensing justice as they see fit once they encounter a crime scene. That said, the 1995 Judge Dredd was a kind of misbegotten casserole of ideas that may have struck some as having some unintended irony by including both some tangential references to cloning along with that "makin' copies" guy from Saturday Night Live, Rob Schneider, as a supporting actor. Dredd has a much more streamlined plot which focuses on the titular Judge (Karl Urban) "assessing" a psychic rookie named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) to see if she has what it takes to join the "judicial" ranks. Anderson has failed the actual test for being a Judge, but her unique psychic abilities have brought her to the attention of the highest echelons of the government bureaucracy, and they want to see how she performs in "field conditions". Meanwhile, a notorious drug lord and megablock gang leader named Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) is manufacturing and dispensing a virulent new drug called Slo-Mo which, when smoked, makes its users sense time at around 1/50th of its normal speed. Ma-Ma does not take kindly to having her turf questioned, and when she literally skins three ill advised competitors alive and dumps their remains in the atrium of the high rise city within a city that she commands, Anderson decides that's the crime call she and Dredd should answer. The rest of the film plays within the confines of Ma-Ma's megablock, the anachronistically named Peachtrees. What Dredd and Anderson initially think is going to be a relatively simple drug bust turns into a life or death cat and mouse game between the two Judges (or in Anderson's case, prospective Judge) and Ma-Ma's gang of thugs. When Ma-Ma closes down the megablock under an engineered "war" shield program, Dredd and Anderson find themselves trapped in a towering deathtrap with threats around every corner. There's no denying that Dredd is often a bristling and viscerally exciting action film, but there's also no denying that certain aspects of it are awfully derivative. The opening "news footage" of various displaced classes plays like something out of District 9, while Karl Urban's husky whispered vocal take on Dredd seems an outright copy of the Christopher Nolan conception of Batman in The Dark Knight Trilogy. Meanwhile, Lena Headey's Ma-Ma might be mistaken for a not so distant cousin to the Joanna Cassidy character in Blade Runner. To its credit, though, the film doesn't really try to be anything than a massive knock down, drag out fight between good and evil. There are some passing attempts to humanize Anderson and to give Ma-Ma a little backstory (something the motion comic prequel included with a supplement actually probably does a little bit better), but when you get right down to it, Dredd is more or less one gigantic set piece within the strangely claustrophobic confines of an immense skyscraper, and as such both Alex Garland's screenplay and Pete Travis' direction get their jobs done very well indeed. Some of the horrific events that were visited upon our nation in December may come back to haunt Dredd at least tangentially in its home video release. The film was already under the gun (pun intended) for its extreme and often very graphic violence, but with the recent mass shootings, the wholesale destruction of so many innocent bystanders throughout the film may give some people pause. I personally live in a suburb of Portland, Oregon, which some may remember had its own smaller scale tragedy when an insane gunman killed two people in a crowded shopping mall shortly before Christmas, and unfortunately there's a shopping mall massacre that takes place early in Dredd as well. It's of course ironic in that Dredd is attempting to show us a vision of the future where lawlessness prevails and the mighty arm of the law is absolute and unquestioned, while here in our present time overtly violent films like Dredd are being questioned by some for fostering that very lawlessness. Dredd received fairly positive critical reaction when it was released, but it still failed to really ignite at the box office. I have to wonder how this new Blu-ray is going to be received in the current climate that is understandably touchy over mass shootings, something that is part and parcel of this film. But without getting into the seemingly eternal debate of how much influence media violence has on impressionable minds, Dredd is a remarkably exciting film, one that doesn't waste a lot of time on psychology and motivation, and instead just gives us that equally eternal showdown between good and evil. This Blu-ray offers great looking video, although the 3D effects, while substantial, are often very subtle. The audio is simply spectacular and should blow away all but the most hardened audiophile. While the supplementary package isn't overwhelming, it's still enjoyable, and the release comes Highly Recommended. [CSW] -4.1- Major Note : This is actually the first 3D Blu-ray that I have ever rented from Netflix that played in 3D. Forget that cartoonish disgrace from 1995 starring Stallone. This version is the true Judge Dredd from the classic comics of the late 70's from the UK. You may find it hard to believe, but Dredd was the best movie I've seen in many years. Why? Because it a throwback to the great R-Rated Sci-Fi/Action classics of the 80s (like Predator, Die Hard, Robocop, etc.), which studios just don't seem to make anymore. This is clearly aimed for adults & not the PG-13 crowd. The source material is rich & the writers nailed it perfectly in this movie. Dredd is a fascinating character study, great plot, terrific acting, lots of action, and plenty of violence (not for the squeamish). Karl Urban nails his performance as Dredd, one of the most memorable bad-a$$es of all-time. Although it received high ratings from critics, this film made little money the box office, which is a shame. In time, this film will be thought of as a great Sci-Fi classic. Give it a try! Rented the 3D/2D version on 01/09/2012 before later purchase. (Based on Comic Book) Cast Notes: Karl Urban (Judge Dredd), Rachel Wood (Control Operator 1), Andile Mngadi (Passenger), Porteus Xandau Steenkamp (Driver), Jason Cope (Zwirner), Emma Breschi (Hostage), Olivia Thirlby (Anderson), Rakie Ayola (Chief Judge), Lena Headey (Ma-Ma), Tamer Burjaq (Ma-Ma Bodyguard), Warrick Grier (Caleb), Wood Harris (Kay), Shoki Mokgapa (Woman with Child), Yohan Chun (Girl in Window), Eden Knowles (Girl in Window). IMDb Rating (02/11/17): 7.1/10 from 210,322 users
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
