Dredd

Judge Joseph Dredd is a character who was created for British sci-fi comic magazine, 2000 AD, in 1977 by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, and has since become the comic’s longest running character. Being a law enforcement officer in a dystopian future who takes the meaning of ‘’Judge, Jury, and Executioner” extremely to heart, Judge Dredd has over the course of several years been hailed as one of the best satires of American and British culture for being able to pick up on modern issues and trends very effectively like mass surveillance, the rise of populist leaders and even the COVID pandemic. This level of acclaim quickly got the character a live-action film in 1995 starring Sylvester Stallone, but it was hit with awful reception and is still considered to this day to be one of Stallone’s worst films. Regardless, it was still a strong enough name and source material to be worth bringing back in 2012 for one more shot, this time with much better reception, even if said praise may be a bit misplaced.

Set in 2080 within a dystopic metropolis city known as Mega-City-One, crime is rampant throughout the streets and requires the aid of the Judges (the only force of order left in this world) to sort them out. One such judge, Judge Dredd (played by Karl Urban) is tasked with evaluating new recruit Cassandra (played by Olivia Thirlby) who possess mutant psychic abilities. Out on patrol, the two end up in a 200-story slum tower block to inspect a reported execution of three men by drug lord Madeline ‘’Ma-Ma’’ Madrigal (played by Lena Headey). While inspecting a drug raid and managing to capture someone from Ma-Ma’s clan named Kay (played by Wood Harris), the entire tower block is forced into lockdown, and Ma-Ma commands all gangs within the area to hunt down and kill the two judges. Now trapped in a box full of drugged-up vicious criminals with civilians in the crossfire, both judges have to survive the ordeal and make their way to the top of the tower to kill Ma-Ma and earn their freedom.

Being received much better than its predecessor, Dredd failed to make a profit at the box office but saw greater success with its home release and most critics and audiences eventually labelled it poplar enough to be a cult film, mainly for its closer resemblance to the source material. However, faithfulness doesn’t automatically equal quality as this film clearly demonstrates, with it lacking much of the bite of the source material, containing fairly shallow scripting and characters, and not having a ton of personality for what should be a very eye-catching and memorable brand.

The story for this film took its ideas from some notable Judge Dredd storylines including Democracy (1986) and Origins (2006), and the writing process tried to avoid any larger-than-life storylines and instead focus on the more down-to-earth, ‘’day-in-the-life-of’’ kind of presentation when portraying the world, characters, and narrative. This can be felt pretty clearly as the plot is incredibly simple, quick to grasp and is an idea that’s been done before in several other films, with the lead or leads being trapped within a location surrounded by his/her enemies which they need to fight off by becoming a force of nature in order to get out alive. On the surface, this doesn’t seem like too much of an issue and maybe with the correct handling, this could be pretty entertaining, but the film is severely lacking in a unique feel, a lively energy, and any semblance of relatability or cleverness. The original film was very much a product of its time and suffered heavily due to its annoying action cliches, its lack of connection to its source material and its clear style-over-substance mentality, but at least from a visual and even attitude standpoint, it felt extremely distinct and was un-apologetically its-own-thing, whether it be good, bad, or otherwise. This film is trying so desperately to be gritty, realistic, and intense, that it ironically feels incredibly unmemorable and gives no indication that it would be based on a popular and unique comic series.

It’s dull, lifeless, filled with generic action cliches that don’t bring any distinct personality, and for a series that was praised for its political and social commentary that many claimed was ahead of its time, this film lacks any drop of that element and plays itself incredibly straight without giving proper thought and reasoning behind several of its choices (something that this film was criticized for, to be fair). The one credited for directing this film was Pete Travis (who was mostly a TV director before his first feature length with the 2008 political thriller, Action Point) but the film was also slightly co-directed by writer and producer Alex Garland, who worked on projects like 28 Days Later, its sequel, 28 Weeks Later, Sunshine and Never Let Me Go. Regardless of who brought more to the table or who was responsible for the simultaneous hyper-focus and limited focus on the source material, the end project wasn’t one that had much spark or life within it, so it doesn’t feel like an incredibly impressive job from either party.

The characters aren’t made to be the least bit interesting or even to feel like identifiable personalities that people should want to continuously read in a comic series. For an environment and a personality set up in the source material that appears to be edgy, graphic, and in-your-face insane (with still a brain attached underneath to explore topical world issues in a hyper insane manner), the overwhelming levels of mediocrity that come from these characters is mainly just disappointing. Karl Urban as Dredd feels like a pretty good choice; he looks the part, wears that pretty silly looking outfit pretty nicely, has a fitting voice and demeanor that works for this kind of stoically awesome action star, and has enough appearances in general mainstream media to know how to play to his audience while being cult enough to not be an obvious pick, yet nothing about this performance of Dredd leaves any impression. This idea of a dedicated law officer being put in a position where he is forced to question his ideals and work ethics, has meat to it and has been successful in other stories, but there’s not enough time in the film or insight given to his role to make any of that feel earned or even properly processed from his perspective.

He’s got the one-liners and some flashy fight sequences, but other action stars have done that while also being engaging leads. Equally as boring is Ma-Ma as the villain, who really isn’t as threatening or as memorable as she should be. Lena Headey has proven that she is capable of playing a good complex villain through her work in Game of Thrones, but this role is so minuscule and generic that she’s never allowed to showcase any of that talent (all the while being stuck with a really bad American accent). Even from a basic action-flick standpoint, she’s too reserved, quiet, and brooding to be memorable or entertaining, so the role really doesn’t have anything to show for itself and never feels like a credible scary force (and saying she feminized a few guys isn’t good enough, even if it’s a good start). Olivia Thirlby as the rookie agent is also mostly underused, is given a rushed arc which doesn’t feel earned, and some parts of her acting feel a little directionless, but she is overall harmless enough and she does have a pretty cool scene where she mentally links with a criminal and shows an interesting dark side, so she has that going for her.

For a world that could be made to look so visually distinct and insane like the comic series did before it, the film again opts for a more realistic portrayal of a futuristic dystopic environment, and therefore, makes everything look boring, generic and like any other apocalyptic future. The production design by Mark Digby barely looks futuristic and even a majority of the gadgets and gizmos they have at their disposal don’t feel that distinct from other futuristic action stories (although these examples could’ve borrowed said ideas from this original source so it’s hard to tell). Again, to the credit of the original Stallone feature, it created an environment that was grand, epic, and largely over-masculine to the point of being comical, while still being crazy and unique with some of its design, whereas this film tries so desperately to be taken seriously that it fails in leaving an impression from any angle, and almost feels afraid to deliver something in a playfully insane way, which feels bizarre as that is what the source material kind of felt like in parts.

The cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle is shot very blandly, the film is stuck with this ugly oily filter that makes everything look dirty and decrepit in a bad way, and even the design of the Dredd uniforms constructed by costume designers, Diana Cilliers and Michael O’Connor, doesn’t feel as unique of an attire as they should feel like. The movie also gives a lot of attention to this drug called ‘’slow mo’’ which reduces its user’s perception of time to 1% of normal speed, and they exploit this element to death with how often they showcase it through overly long scenes involving the usage of it. Sometimes it can have a gracefulness to its simplicity and its hyper-focused visuals, but they are used so frequently, go on for so long and offer nothing that new outside of ‘’normal things in slow-motion’’ that it honestly starts to become annoying and feels extremely pretentious.

Judge Dredd as a character and as a story seems to have plenty of merit to it and would make for an engaging project if made correctly, but it seems that neither has properly been able to do so. While the film critically did well enough, the lack of box office success prevented a sequel and maybe showed that it didn’t do enough to branch out to non-die-hard fans. Dredd, regardless of whether or not it’s faithful to the comics, suffers from being boring, unengaging, and afraid of being seen as anything other than mature and gritty (which is pretty strange considering the comic looks appealing from both an intelligential and casual perspective). The film isn’t smart enough to feature interesting commentary or unique spins on tired cliches but also isn’t stupid enough to work as a mindless action flick that sucks people in through corny lines, kills and theatrics, instead being in a horrible in-between that satisfies no one. The characters are stale, the writing is generic, the visuals are ugly, and the plot is bare-bones and forgettable as anything. Maybe hard-core Dredd fans could get something out of this, but for anyone else, no justice exists for them.