# Dredd 3-D (2012)



## alchemist (Sep 6, 2012)

Has anybody seen, or is anyone going to see this? It arrived with so little fanfare that I suspected it might be a dud (the producers being ashamed of it) but I see it has 19/19 positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

All of a sudden, I think it could be worth one of my rare forays to the 3-D cinema.

Here's a trailer  http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dredd_3d/trailers/11170763/


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 6, 2012)

Have seen it talked about on Facebook. Looks like a potentially decent re-invention of Dredd, but am a little concerned that it'll be nothing more than a showcase for doing splatter in 3D.


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## Perpetual Man (Sep 6, 2012)

I've not seen it... yet. 

But the review in SFX magazine was highly complimentary saying that it was everything that a Judge Dredd movie should be. The actor playing Dredd, Karl Urban, is a huge fan of the comics and was determined to keep it as true to them as possible, re-reading all the old  tales to try and get every nuance right.

And although I've not actually seen it written anywhere I'm pretty sure he keeps his helmet on throughout.

I'd love to see it in the cinema, but can't see that happening so will probably have to wait for a DVD release.


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## alchemist (Sep 6, 2012)

Perpetual Man said:


> I'd love to see it in the cinema, but can't see that happening so will probably have to wait for a DVD release.


 
That's what will probably happen with me too. Although as a film designed for 3D, it might be a pity to miss out on that, splatter notwithstanding. Then again, Perp, if you did buy that 3D TV you were talking about, we could all go around to yours.


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## Dante DiBenedetto (Sep 6, 2012)

Perpetual Man said:


> I've not seen it... yet.
> The actor playing Dredd, Karl Urban, is a huge fan of the comics and was determined to keep it as true to them as possible, re-reading all the old  tales to try and get every nuance right.



I've heard this claim before, when it ends up being blatant lies. Hopefully he's being truthful.

Frankly, though, I don't see this being a crap movie. At the very worst, it'll be a heck of a special effects joyride.


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## Kylara (Sep 6, 2012)

Yup keeps his helmet on, the director/writer all big Dredd fans and tried to keep it as close as possible, trawling through the comics for the storyline...should be good, can't be worse than the last one...


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## Rodders (Sep 6, 2012)

I can't wait to see this. I just hope that the movie does the comic justice as I'd love to see more 2000AD stories on the big screen.


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## Connavar (Sep 6, 2012)

Karl Urban immense jaw, in that cool Dredd pic was enough to lure me in.   I hope its good and does the comics justice.  I have read mostly Garth Ennis trades of Dredd coomics.

I cant wait to see it.


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## Perpetual Man (Sep 6, 2012)

alchemist said:


> That's what will probably happen with me too. Although as a film designed for 3D, it might be a pity to miss out on that, splatter notwithstanding. Then again, Perp, if you did buy that 3D TV you were talking about, we could all go around to yours.



Whistles innocently.


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## Vince W (Sep 6, 2012)

I've been anticipating this film ever since it was announced. I'm a huge Dredd fan and can only hope it does well enough that they will consider doing more.


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## Patrick Mahon (Sep 14, 2012)

I saw Dredd yesterday, and it is well worth going to see. It's faithful to the original (and I started reading 2000AD in 1977), well acted, has a good story and the 3D effects do actually enhance the experience of watching it (which is the first time I've felt that about a 3D movie).

If you get a chance to go and see it in the cinema, I'd warmly recommend it.


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## PTeppic (Sep 15, 2012)

Saw it a couple of days ago. Didn't even notice the 3D stuff, so that was a waste of the extra entrance fee. The plot is relatively simple, no real side stories or sub-plots, but is well executed. Loved the direction given to villain Lena Heady, as little more than a 



Spoiler



crack-head whore


 who just happens to be running the antagonist "clan" (c.f. in-control, measured, calm and collected head of a criminal under-class). But, basically, it's 90 minutes of really big guns and lots of splatter. It does work though.


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## mr kite (Sep 19, 2012)

I really enjoyed this movie .
About time we had an 18 rating Sci Fi .
Unlike Total Recall which was a bit dissapointing


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## Rodders (Sep 26, 2012)

I watched it last night and really enjoyed it. Mega city 1 and the mega blocks looked awesome. There was a real sense of hopelessness for the citizens. The violence was pretty gory, but that's Dredd's world so it never felt like too much. I thought the slo mo scenes were very well done.

The screen I saw it on was pretty small, so I'm assuming that this hasn't done too well at the box office. A shame, we need to visit Mega City 1 again.


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## Vince W (Sep 26, 2012)

Dredd is a great film. It captures the feel of the comics, 2000AD and the Megazine. Urban is great as Dredd and you never see his face. And Lena Henley is one scary villain. I'm going to see it again tomorrow.


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## Rodders (Sep 27, 2012)

Yeah, I'm going to try and see it again with one of my other friends who is a huge 2000AD fan.


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## Dante DiBenedetto (Sep 27, 2012)

I enjoyed the hell out of it. I might see about going to see it again (this time in 2D) with some of my mates.


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## Rodders (Sep 27, 2012)

There doesn't seem to be many people that didn't like it. That's great news!


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## Dante DiBenedetto (Sep 27, 2012)

Rodders said:


> There doesn't seem to be many people that didn't like it. That's great news!



This is why I like Rotten Tomatoes.

Most of the critiques didn't like it because:

1. It's violent and gory
2. It's straightforward
3. Nothing groundbreaking


And those are all fair critiques, for the most part. However, those three issues for them did not over weigh the sheer awesomeness that was Dredd 3D.

I felt like it's the first good gritty Dystopian Sci-Fi flick we've had in a while. I, of course, could have missed some recent releases, or blanked, but nothing comes to mind.


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## EricWard (Sep 27, 2012)

I saw it last night with a buddy and was not disappointed in the least. It's everything the Stallone movie was not.

He never removes his helmet, for one. The story is not some overblown conspiracy nonsense, more a day in the life of Dredd. No opening text crawl. No scenery-chewing shouts of "LAW!"
No Rob Schneider.

I was especially impressed with the villain. It's a woman, but the most extraordinary thing about her is not her gender, just the fact that she is a badass.

As an American, I'm probably genetically predisposed to love violence, but if you like '80s/early '90s action movies at all (_RoboCop_, _Total Recall_ (the one with Ah-nold, of course), _Die Hard_, _Death Wish 3_), you really can't afford to miss it.


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## Rodders (Sep 28, 2012)

Dante DiBenedetto said:


> This is why I like Rotten Tomatoes.
> 
> Most of the critiques didn't like it because:
> 
> ...



I hate this. Why does every film have to be"judged" (ahem, did you see what I did there?) poorly because of this. As far as I'm concerned, Dredd's great because it entertained me. A lot. Bring on a sequel. 

Yeah, Ma Ma was a great villain. Is it me or did she lean into the fall. Kind of like she wanted it to happen in the end. Another indication of the sheer hopelessness that citizens must feel in the Mega Cities.


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## Vince W (Sep 28, 2012)

Rodders said:


> Yeah, Ma Ma was a great villain. Is it me or did she lean into the fall. Kind of like she wanted it to happen in the end. Another indication of the sheer hopelessness that citizens must feel in the Mega Cities.



Oh yes, she totally leaned into it. She accepted her fate and took it for what it was worth. Another act of defiance towards the law, enjoying her execution.


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## iansales (Sep 28, 2012)

I saw it this afternoon. It's excellent.


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## EricWard (Sep 29, 2012)

Just in case anyone forgot about the standard set by the Stallone movie, there's this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=2aaubVlhNK4

So really, anything is an improvement after that. Luckily for movie fans, _Dredd _is awesome without being compared to the 1995 movie.


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## J Riff (Dec 23, 2012)

Dreddful. Rancid doing-in of the great Judge Dredd persona. For fans of close-up gunshot death and cheap synthetic scary noises. 
 Really enjoyed Dredd comics and all the 2000 AD characters, re-read them many times. There was a sense of humour and intelligent writing. This film has neither.
 Looks like someone wants Dredd to be a heavy, depressing shoot-em-up and nuttin' else. The kind of film that might inspire someone to go out and shoot a bunch o' people cos it looks so easy and fun.
 Blech.


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## iansales (Dec 23, 2012)

You do realise we're discussing the recent Dredd film starring Karl Urban and not the Sylvester Stallone from the 1990s? Because while Dredd was violent, there was certainly humour in it. And intelligence. It was pretty much exactly the Dredd of the comic.


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## J Riff (Dec 23, 2012)

And cheesy sex just the instant Anderson flashed her psychic ability... 
Its certainly in the top ten of the _rounds fired in a movie_ category recently. )


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## Patrick Mahon (Jan 12, 2013)

As far as I understand it, Dredd 3D is out on DVD next Monday. Does anyone have any idea whether the DVD release will have any extra features, or will it simply be the cinematic release of the film and nothing else?

Still going to get it, as I loved it at the cinema. But I'm having difficulty finding out any firm information about it ahead of seeing it in the shops...


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## J Riff (Jan 13, 2013)

I'm gonna bash this Dreddful hack again, maybe someone can report back whether I missed something or not.
 The writing.... * well...Dredd and Anderson the psychic go into a Block, to check out some murders. The main gang in the Block are an up and coming drug ring, about to be very rich from selling Slo-MO, a drug that slows time and allows for extremely drawn out slow-motion massacres...   

 Now..the gang leader gal decides to ... uh, seal off the block by calling in a false alert of some kind, a security check kinda thing, so doors clank down and the block is sealed......and, the instant this happens, and they decide to track down and kill the 2 Judges now trapped in the Block...it's all over. They have just committed suicide. The minute that door goes up and Dredd and Anderson aren't there, the Block will be swarmed with justice, and game over.
_Terrible_ writing...they had to get them locked in that Block I guess...so they could fire off a million rounds. Eventually, Dredd shoots a hole in the wall and they are out...but he can't do this earlier?

  The writing was the highlight of 2000 A.D. Yes, the Judges gunned down a good number of criminals but there was an over-riding lighthearted sense of humour. This movie is a graphic bloodbath and seems to have been written by someone very keen on gunplay, and fixed up, probably by techs, at the last minute.
 I fast-forwarded the last third or so, so maybe I missed some brilliance. 
 The graphics- feh who cares. Very dissapointed cos I wanted it to be great and fun.


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## Gordian Knot (Jan 13, 2013)

Never did see this though I was considering it. I like Karl Urban a great deal. Decided not to go to the theatre to see it after the incredibly dismal opening weekend. The public seemed to just shrug and turn away. I don't normally pay much attention to the critics, but when the public gives a big thumbs down, I get wary.

It was certainly a box office disaster. Don't know how it did overseas, but the movie budget was 50 million, and its U.S. take was 13 million. OUCH!


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## Patrick Mahon (Jan 15, 2013)

Got the DVD yesterday, and watched the film again last night - and enjoyed it almost as much as the first time round at the cinema. It's very dark, but that reflects a very clear strand in Judge Dredd stories over the years. Dredd co-creator John Wagner features in one of the DVD extras, and he seems pretty happy with the story.

J Riff - I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. The film explains why Ma Ma's gang aren't worried about retribution if they kill Dredd and Anderson - the reason being that they intend to kill the two Judges in such a way that it just looks like a drugs bust that went wrong. Judges die on duty every day, and the Justice Department is very over-stretched, so they figure that there's very little chance of a massive operation to clear out the entire block. By the way, when Dredd blows a hole in the wall, it's not at ground level (which is heavily reinforced with steel blast doors), it's to a skateboard ramp about 50 floors up,  which isn't so heavily reinforced. And if you didn't watch the last third of the movie, then you certainly missed an awful lot of the story.

Gordian Knot - there's been a lot of critical and fan praise for this movie. There are lots of reasons to explain why it failed at the Box Office, not least of which is the 18 certificate, which is unusual for "superhero" movies and restricted the potential audience, along with the limited distribution in the US. It did pretty well in the UK, prior to the US launch.

I suggest you get the DVD, then you can Judge for yourself...


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## Rodders (Jan 16, 2013)

Nice response. 

I really enjoyed this and can't wait to pick up the Blu Ray.


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## Verse (Apr 22, 2013)

Late to the party, mainly because I was waiting for the BlueRay to turn up in the supermarket discount shelves.

Yes, this is the Dredd movie I have been waiting for. Totally true to the canon but very much on the dark side. I loved that they treated the Judge equipment well, the lawgiver gun is pretty much spot on, they even used the fact that the Judge's guns are keyed to the users DNA as a plot element.

The foreshadowing about Mega city being so massive and violent crime so widespread that Judges can only respond to 6% of all reported crimes sets the scene nicely for why Ma-Ma thinks she can get away with the block lockdown and manhunt.

The lockdown itself was a good plot element to isolate the Judges. You really get a sense of the scale of the block too. That was some good cinematography. 200-hundred floors, 97% unemployment - the place was a real urban hell hole. 

I watched it twice, once in 2D and then again in 3D - The 3D really adds something, it is ideally suited to action films. Of course, it also works for the visual affects of the Slo-mo drug too.

Yeah, the plot wasn't deep and I thought the actress playing Anderson was a little wooden but overall, this was a great Dredd movie and I hope they do more.

Side note: The Stallone Dredd movie wasn't so awful IMHO but he did take the helmet off, which is too bad because Stallone has definitely got the jaw for the role.


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## Alex Mason (May 22, 2013)

Great film. It was very true to the comics and is a nice addition to an 80's or early 90's action movie genre. It was shot in 3d and I fully support that decision (and own it on 3D Blu-Ray), but I was disappointed that the 3D was not as noticeable as it should have been for that being its native format. When you compare the 3d to "Drive Angry" or "OZ:tGaP," it looks more like a post-production conversion.

Aside from that, the movie is good. The actors own the roles very well and the feel of the MegaCities is right on as is Dredd's Black and White view of the world.


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## Patrick Mahon (Sep 13, 2013)

Has anyone else signed up to the 'Let's get a Dredd sequel' campaign on Facebook and elsewhere? I got an email from them earlier this week, saying that they're planning a 'day of action' next Wednesday, 18 September, to try and put more pressure on the relevant people to get a sequel made. If you're interested, details are at:
www.2000adonline.com/dreddsequel


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## paranoid marvin (Sep 13, 2013)

It's a good film. Whilst a lot of the characterisation is spot on, Mega City 1 was much better done in Stallone's version; this felt more like a more realistic future world, which is great but it ain't 2000AD's version. Everything was far too normal.

Also a massive mistake with the Slo-Mo drug - you would experience about 5 to 10 seconds of the fall, then you'd be dead. although your mind has been altered to slow things down, gravity hasn't!

Why has no-one heard of Dredd? Most perps would at least acknowledge that it was Dredd who was after them, and would those other Judges have tried to hunt him down? Very unlikely! Dredd is 'Known and feared throughout the city' according to the blurb on Rotten Tomatoes - not in this film he ain't!


And where is the humour? Far too few wisecracks from Dredd, not in keeping at all with the character. 

Overall it's a great action film, but what it isn't is a great 2000AD film. Take away the Lawgivers and the uniforms, and it could just as easily have been any futuristic cop action film set in a skyscraper (just lock the bottom 30 floors off and you've got the same scenario as the shielding).

Well worth watching, but if you;re a fan of Dredd quite disappointing. Perhaps with the success of the original a bigger budget will be given to sequels.


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## paranoid marvin (Sep 13, 2013)

On an aside , the stallone film isn't actually that bad. The storyline is great, Mega City 1 is impressive, the bad guy (Rico) is a scary villain and the humour is there. It's one big mistake was pissing off all of the Dredd fans by getting Stallone to remove his helmet. This was the biggest criticism of the movie at the time, and it's stuck to this day. Just because he removes his helmet (which I'm sure he must do from time to time!) it's judged a bad movie, which is unfair. I've seen my share of bad movies, and this is far from the worst; in fact it's actually quite enjoyable.

Nowhere near as good as his future cop in Demolition Man though!


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## alchemist (Sep 13, 2013)

I never even commented on the thread I started. I loved it! It was worryingly similar to The Block, which came out at the same time, but I thought the dystopian landscape was very true to 2000AD. The one thing I thought felt off was at the end -- the real Joe wouldn't have passed Anderson.

It's a pity if it made a loss. I'd like to see a sequel too, preferably with Judge Death, although being as much Fantasy as SF, that might feel too different to this film.


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 14, 2013)

paranoid marvin said:


> It's one big mistake was pissing off all of the Dredd fans by getting Stallone to remove his helmet.



IMO the biggest problem with the Stallone version was Rico killing all the future chief judges! No chance of a sequel there.


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## JoanDrake (Sep 14, 2013)

I must get both movies. I never much noticed Dredd as a comic and was sort of surprised that it was popular enough to become a live action movie the first time. To see a remake this soon and so positively reviewed means I must have been missing something.


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## Vince W (Sep 17, 2013)

If you want a Dredd sequel help supporting the cause my purchasing a DVD/Blu-ray on 18 Sep.

Get ready for the DREDD sequel campaign 'Day of Action'


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## Patrick Mahon (Feb 5, 2014)

And equally, if you want a Dredd sequel right now, before they get round to making a follow-up film (if they ever do), you may want to go to your nearest comic shop and get hold of the one shot 'Dredd: Underbelly', which came out last week. It was serialised first in the Judge Dredd Megazine in the UK, but has now been collected together. More details at Buy Digital Dredd: Underbelly from our wide range of 2000 AD Digital | shop.2000adonline.com


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