Dredd

I just finished watching the remake film Dredd and thought I'd throw my thoughts up on here. I was originally holding off until I could watch the orignal, but could never bring myself around to watching it. So I'm coming at this with a fresh perspective. This movie is intense. If you like exciting action thrillers, you will like this movie. There's non stop action and an okay amount of story to enhance it. While not an award winning script or story by any means, it has enough content and twists to keep the viewer interesting. The design work of the film is pretty intense. The world is grim and the setting portrays it very well. Performances all around were good enough to match the blandness of the characters. The only thing acting-wise I wish was different was Lena Headey. She did well, I just wanted her to be a little creepier as the drug lord of the 200 story Peach Trees building where the entire movie takes place.

The strengths of this movie come from it's parameters. As it is a "fishbowl" plot, we see almost nothing outside of Peach Trees once we get there. This allowed them to create the look of the building and use a practical set to minimize their effects which is almost always a plus. Speaking of the visual effects, the story revolves around the use of a drug called Slo-Mo. To represent the effects of the drug they use a slow motion camera and sound effect that did a lot to emphasize it. They use these effects very cleverly, especially when Dredd and the new recruit burst in and start shooting the drug users. They go back and forth between the slow motion of the druggies's POVs and the normal Dredd POV. Karl Urban is quite excellent as the always grumpy looking Judge Dredd.

My favorite scene was the very clever battle of wits when the psychic recruit interrogates a man inside his head. The use of the special effects to have the recruit appear behind the guy and turn his thoughts against him was really clever and very visually fun.

All in all this was a great action flick. It's simplicity was not interrupted by stupid love stories or overly complicated sub plots. Definitely a solid 6.5 for me.