Panda-Rex is stoked about Dredd 3D and so should you!!!
There a few things that keep me going as a Comic book nerd, and no it isn’t the over saturation on “innovation” that plagues my favorite heroes. The glint of hope I speak of is when Comic books receive an accurate representation on film. There are few (if any) that keep the same feel of the comic, Dredd seems to be one of these scarce films. Above and beyond , it brings the dark, gritty , post apocalyptic feel that the Stallone movie seem to have forgotten. Granted, it is mentioned at the beginning of the film but it is lost on the rest of the movie. Pete Travis(Vantage Point) seems to base the whole mood of the film in grime and dirt , it gives it that gritty feel that the comic was famous for. In addition Dredd feels less like a campy action movie and more like a dark crime noir.
The story blends awesome with the crime noir feel, Judge Dredd takes a rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) and attempts to take down a gang that is flooding the streets of a futuristic city with a reality altering drug called Slo-Mo, chaos and bullet hell ensue . Apart from being a more serious film than its 1995 counter part the cinematography looks very beautiful and the effects of Slo-Mo are so pretty, it makes you want a hit for yourself. Check out the trailer … after you are done reading this ,of course.
The people who are involved are all kind of green to the action scene but the few things they have done are all top shelf stuff. Pete Travis is most famous for Vantage Point , a cinematic heavy crime drama, his camera style will bring a new aspect of gun fights and hand to hand combat that we don’t see often in western cinema. Karl Urban brings a harsh kind of feel to Dredd, His face although you only see less than a fourth of it, conveys a look of ”I can kill you with my bare hands if you don’t shut up , right now”. Urban has a few action films under his belt , Red and he is currently working on a Riddick sequel. Most of all , I am very stoked about Olivia Thirlby’s role as a rookie Anderson, she has an innocence that seems unshakable but this ordeal seems to be the catalyst to harden her into the Anderson we are accustomed to.
I expect this to be a litmus test of sorts, I hope there are sequels to this movie. If done right , there is a lot of stories to be told.
