I was not excited for Dredd, in fact before going to see it I was mentally preparing myself for another genericsci-fi/action movie with a comic book character slapped onto it and boy was I wrong! Dredd 3-D is easily one of the best films I have seen this year and you would be doing yourself a dis service by not seeing it!

The greatest thing about this film is the very character of Judge Dredd, a character that is sort of a mix between Nolans Batman and Rorschach from Watchmen. He is a man who has completely devoted himself to enforcing the law, he never takes off the helmet of the Judges and he will do what ever it takes to keep the peace, no matter what horrible thing he may be forced to do.

He sees everything in black and white, either you’re guilty or you’re innocent, he doesn’t care what kind of excuse you may have and depending on your crime, you will be punished for it without reprisal. This makes Dredd an incredibly interesting character and I could probably write a whole book behind the psychology of him.

I have to commend Karl Urban for his performance here, considering most of his face is covered through the whole film, his actions are enough to give you an idea behind the character of Dredd and the dude has the best Batman voice ive heard yet.

Dredd is a product of the world he lives in and it is a terrible world indeed. Most of the planet has been destroyed following nuclear war and whats left of humanity is forced to live in these massive 200 story buildings, crime and murder is rampant and too combat this sort of madness, the police had to run themselves into uncompromising law enforcing machines to just keep the peace.

What I found really interesting as well is that this could conceivably happen, the world that Dredd livesdoesn’t feel like a movie studio, it feels like a living breathing place that could actually exist, its dark, gritty and run down and it just oozes with atmosphere and style in a way other fictional places cant.

The plot of the film while fairly straightforward is as I previously said enhanced by the character of Dredd,there’s a new drug on the streets called Slow-Mo that makes the brain go at 1% its normal speed and the cause of this is a drug lord called Ma-Ma, played by Lena Headey.

Now this chick is a hardcore bitch, she is the very opposite of Dredd in many areas, while Dredd represents the law and order, Ma-Ma represents the madness of this world, she will do anything to stay on top of the crime food chain and she is just as uncompromising as Dredd in enforcing her own personal code, the things she does just to be the boss and get money are seriously messed up.

Now the elements of this movie that might make you nervous, such as the 3-D and the slow motion all workbeautifully here, this isn’t Resident Evil where there’s slow motion just for the sake of having it, here its used to enhance the violence and it looks really awesome in 3-D.

For example in the trailer you see Dredd busting into a junkie house and you can just see the bullets going through peoples faces, blowing giant holes through their chest, this movie finally did something cool with 3-D and slow motion, two of the biggest gimmicks in movies finally have been used the way they should!

And thank god this movie is rated R, if it wasn’t I really couldn’t see this movie working, the R rating works in favor of the film and truly brings the comic book to life as well as allowing the 3-D and slow motion to be used to their full potential.

Dredd is probably tied in my list as the best CBM film of this year, second to only The Dark Knight Rises, it gives you great and violent action, an interesting fully realized world with atmosphere and style, a surprisingly deep and thought provoking protagonist and probably the best use of 3-D and slow motion since the Avatar and the Matrix respectively.

FINAL VERDICT: A+

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