Film review: Dredd 3D (2012), directed by Pete Travis

Some time in the dystopian future, there’s a “mega city”, a big, walled city stretching from Washington to Boston. Within them the judge, jury and executioners are the “Judges”, a sort of special police force. One of these is Judge Dredd (Karl Urban). His boss (Rakie Ayola) gives him a rookie to assess. She was just 3% under pass rate and is given a second chance, because she’s the best psychic they’ve ever encountered.

Rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) and Dredd go to Peach Tree, one of the many massive apartment blocks, in response to three homicides. Problem is, the tower block is under the control of drug lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), and the judges have just captured one of her right-hand men, Kay (Wood Harris). The building block goes into lockdown, and the judges are left to try fighting their way out.

Also starring Domhnall Gleeson as the Clan Techie. See, I thought he was familiar. Not just Brendan’s lad, but the Weasley brother that married Fleur Delacour in Deathly Hallows!

This is another one of those “if you like this sort of film, you’ll like this film”. Mr T therefore thought it was pretty good, and that they did the whole dystopian, post-apocalyptic future better than the Sly Stallone film from the past. I, on the other hand, when I realised the film was really going to just be about the Judges trying to get out of Peach Tree, thought “that’s it? That’s the whole film?”

Yeah, that’s the whole film. Add lots of guns, shooting, people looking grim, drug romanticism (they take drugs and all of a sudden everything is so beeeeauuuutiful and spaaaarklyyyy and faaar oooout, maaan), Cersei Lannister looking like a crack whore, and people losing limbs.

The dystopian future thing, yup, that is done very well. What a godawful place to live. It really makes you despair. But there are the cheesy lines and you only ever see Urban’s jaw. I kept thinking “I recognise him, I can picture his face, but I can’t think of his name”.

You could argue that he also only has the one facial expression, which includes looking like a :C all the time. The pretty girl doesn’t get to wear a helmet, because it “interferes with her psychic abilities”. Yeah, ooooor she’s a pretty actress and guys want something nice to look at … especially since the only other female (for the majority of the film, as we don’t see much of the head Judge) is a crack whore with a big scar on her face and scary teeth.

I suppose on the plus side, with a rating of 18, they could’ve been quite graphic with sex. There’s nothing in it. There is something hinted, but you can’t really make anything out. Nope, the 18 rating is all down to the guns and the shootings and the blood splatter and, probably, the drugs.

And I can’t really figure out why they didn’t just take a hovercraft or chopper or whatever flying vehicles they had and attacked the tower block through the opening up top. Instead, they go knock on the front door saying “hey you guys, let us in!” Really?

Just really not my sort of film, so Shootout at the OK Peach Tree isn’t great, because quite frankly, between the violence, drug glorifying and the fact that the film is only available in 3D, I was bored.

A measly 2.8 out of 5 grim expressions.