For years, the first Judge
Dredd movie had been my only reference point for the character. Upon discovering this, a knowledgeable friend
suggested I check out the comics. He
enticed me to do so by saying that on the comic page, the character was like a
British forerunner to Robocop. Years later, upon finally getting my hands on
a trade paperback that included the legendary “The Cursed Earth,” story arc, I
found his summation to be correct. Judge
Dredd was very much a dark satire filled with brutal action. I then realized that a proper Judge Dredd film should be just like Paul
Verhoven’s Robocop. The first trailer for Dredd seems to promise just that, sans the satire.
The trailer offers nothing that genre fans won’t readily
recognize. The first half is all set-up
and atmospherics. The future looks impenetrably
congested. Megacity 1 stretches out as
far as the eye can see. It looks like an
endless futuristic high-rise housing project.
While the vistas are very familiar, director Pete Travis’s sense of
style certainly isn’t. He and cinematographer
Anthony Dod Mantle have created the most attractive dystopian future I’ve seen
in a while, if that makes any sense. They
also make heavy use of slow motion, and I do mean heavy. In this case, the story actually calls for
it, at least according to the synopsis on the film’s Facebook page:
Known and feared
throughout the city, Dredd (Karl Urban) 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.
The second half of the trailer plays like a sci-fi rendition
of Gareth Evans The Raid: Redemption. It’s
the second film so far this year to do so, the other being David Ayer’s
upcoming End of Watch. Karl
Urban seems to be playing the title role as a caricature of Dirty Harry, which
is exactly as it should be. The curious thing is that the film seems
to playing everything deadly straight. There isn’t a hint of satire to be found. That
isn’t neccessarily a bad thing, but it could mean the difference between a good
Judge Dredd film and a truly great
one.
Either prospect is highly preferable to the debacle that was
released in 1995. The trailer for Dredd shows promise, and as of this moment I am firmly on board.
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