Dredd
June 25, 2026 by admin_name
Dredd
release 2012
www.ink2quill.com
“Dredd” is a post-apocalyptic, action, Scifi film is produced by Stuart Ford, Deepak Nayar, Adi Shankar, Michael Elson, Alex Garland (who also wrote the screenplay), Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Chris Kingsley, Jason Kingsley and directed by Pete Travis. The film is based on the comic series “Judge Dredd” created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra. It stars Karl Urban, Rachel Wood, Andile Mngadi, Porteus Xandau, Jason Cope, Emma Breschi, Olivia Thirlby, Rakie Ayola, Lena Headey, Tamer Burjaq, Warrick Grier, Wood Harris, Shoki Mokgapa, Yohan Chun, Eden Knowles, Patrick Lyster, Langley Kirkwood, Karl Thaning, Michele Levin, Marc Pleass, Julie Summers, Allen Irwin, Brandon Livanos and many more. The story is based on a popular comic series called “Judge Dredd”.
For starters, “Dredd” is the story of a possible future we do NOT want to live in. The story takes place in a dystopic, polluted future in a violent, crime infested super-city known as Mega City One. In this city of extreme poverty and rampant crime there exists the Judges who act as police, bounty hunters, judges and executioners all in one. This is wild west justice to the extreme. (Wyatt Earp has got nothing in Judge Dredd.). This future is beyond crazy. Judge Dredd is played by Karl Urban who does a fantastic job for all you Judge Dredd fans worried he would not be up to scratch. I cannot stress enough how this is a world gone to sh#t.
The Chief Judge has veteran Judge Dredd take novice Cassandra Anderson with him on his work day, played by Olivia Thirlby, to evaluate her. The interesting aspect of this story is that the novice Anderson has received mediocre scores and performance in her tests. By most standards she should not be getting an evaluation but she has one interesting gift that make her a valuable asset to the team. She is a powerful psychic and it is implied that the Department intends to hire more people like her. They start their day at the 200 story tower block called “The Peach Trees” where 3 drug dealers are thrown off the building. The action starts when the tower block drug lord named Madeline ‘Ma-Ma’ Madrigal, played by Lena Heady, tries to kill the judges.
For starters, it is important to state that this is an action movie so you have to suspend your disbelief a little. The Judges, more particularly Judge Dredd, live a very violent high action lifestyle. Theirs is one of the most dangerous legal jobs in this mega-city. And if you like action movies then you’re in for a treat. This is a movie that aged pretty well too. There’s nothing worse than an action or Scifi film that aged badly and this is not the case. We have boat loads of 1950s Scifi films that are terrible. Not just because of the racism, sexism and all other ‘-isms’ either.
One great element of the story is the world building. This picture of an over-crowded, poverty stricken future is too disturbing. And the people who worked on creating this world through writing, customs, sets, special effects and all that good stuff did a good job. The world building and good writing are the two pillars that carry well this film with good acting being a distant second. Still needed but a distant second. We tend to take so many of those people that work behind the camera for granted. So, hat’s off.
I have to say though, that the most disturbing part of this film is not the violence or even the state of the world. It’s the use of psychics (or in this day and age even AI because we have expectations that AI are the new oracles and sages of our time), even though those are two completely different talents. AI and psychics have similar uses and results in these type of societies. The AI deals more with forecasting with mathematical models but both talents deal with putting people in a kind of box/ prison where they can face the power and wrath of society for events that have not happened yet. If you think about it, those talents put humanity in a very tight prison where we would eventually lose our rights. This world has very close similarities with the one created by Philip K, Dick in his novella “Minority Report”. Or even the idea of thought crimes in George Orwell’s classic “1984”. These are all scarry places.
This is a fun action film worth the watch.
John Ink2Quill
Comments
Comments are closed.