Admittedly, I have only a superficial knowledge of Judge Dredd.
I know he’s from the 2000 AD comic book, but I’ve never actually read an issue of 2000 AD. I have a vague understanding that the setting is a dystopian, authoritarian hellhole of a sprawling megacity.
Unless it was just some weird dream I had, I’m pretty sure he fought Batman at some point…
I know that he am the Law.
However, it was only in the process of researching this post that I learned his first name is Joseph.
Quick sidebar: I love a how lot of the 70s and 80s Sci-Fi like this and Neuromancerwere written long enough ago that they’re positing visions of the future that are now in the real-life past – though, upon further research, William Gibson himself apparently envisioned Neuromancer taking place in 2035, though the book itself does not specify a date and is still very much a 80s-flavoured version of the future – the entire plot being kicked off by the theft of three megabytes of RAM.
For reference, my phone has 6 gigabytes…
The 2000 AD–verse has been around long enough that said ‘verse has clearly built up a lot of, um, worldbuilding. Again, we don’t see much of it, since the entirety of Dreddbasically takes place in the same one, locked-down apartment block. We do catch a few glimpses of the wider Megacity One and see Dredd on a few other calls before the main plot kicks off.
And that was probably the right choice while developing the movie. I feel like “Big, Cool, Sci-Fi Gunfight Movie that happens to feature Judge Dredd” is an easier sell than “Big Screen Judge Dredd adaption.”
The last time they tried that, it didn’t go so hot…
For his part, Karl Urban blames the studio for not promoting the movie. That probably tracks. Not many people saw it, but the ones that did generally agree that it’s a good movie.
You could probably pitch Dredd as a reverse The Warriors.
Actually, maybe that’s not the best thing to do. The last time I tried to compare something to The Warriors, I got a bunch of Gen-Zs staring blankly at me.
Ugh. I am really that much older than everyone now?
Now, if you young’uns haven’t seen or even heard of The Warriors, in a story based on the Anabasis, an ancient Greek account of a mercenary army getting trapped in hostile territory and having to fight its way back to friendly Greek colonies, a gang gets framed for assassinating the leader trying to unite the feuding gangs of New York (no relation beyond the most superficial to the movie Gangs of New York), then subsequently gets a bounty put on them and has to fight its way through basically the entirety of New York’s criminal underworld – consisting of a bunch of weirdly gimmicky themed gangs – back to their own territory.
Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you may at least know the memetic “Warriors, come out to play-aay” line:
All of which is to say, instead of fighting his way though a weirdly gimmicky gang to escape hostile territory, Dredd is fighting his way into hostile territory to bring down the villains’ leader in what the man himself sums up as a “drug bust.”
Given the whole “badass fights his way through an apartment building full of bad guys” premise, the most immediate comparisons to Dredd are probably The Raid, the recent The Punisher: One Last Kill Disney Plus special, or maybe even Die Hard.
Despite having basically no familiarity with the character or the setting, I really like Dredd. For the most part, the movie has a self-contained enough plot taking place in a self-contained setting that we don’t really see much of the wider Megacity One and don’t really need any knowledge of Megacity One beyond Dredd’s paragraph or so length worth of expository monologuing at the start of the movie.
If you are a fan of 2000 AD, I feel like Dredd approaches the character and the wider universe with enough respect that you wouldn’t be offended. Especially compared to the aforementioned last time they tried it.
Dredd isn’t necessarily one long action sequence, but there isn’t really much to the plot beyond Dredd and Anderson, the recruit he is evaluating as a potential new Judge, fighting their way to the top of a building full of bad guys.
It’s like John Wick in that the action sequences are the main draw but those action sequences are executed with a lot of care and attention in how they’re scripted and choreographed. They’re loud movies, but they’re not stupid movies. And, I think, would fall under the umbrella of what they call Heroic Bloodshed in Hong Kong cinema.
Also, I’m consistently shocked by much how acting Karl Urban can do with just the bottom third of his face. He does a lot of emoting with just his mouth and chin – though, to be fair, most of those emotions are either Contempt or Badassfulness.
The plot is fairly simple and straightforward – and although it’s not necessarily video-gamey, given the sheer amount of bad guys Dredd has to shoot with his really cool gun, the premise probably would make a pretty solid video game: Dredd and Anderson are called into what is essentially a Sci-Fi apartment block taken over by the drug lord Madeline Madrigal, who mostly goes by Ma-Ma – played by Lena Headey, who proved she could play a villain very well as Cersei Lannister, but is playing (also very well) a very different kind of villain here.
On paper, Dredd and Anderson are simply investigating reports coming out of the building, which leads to Ma-Ma locking down the building, which gives Dredd and Anderson no choice but to fight their way to the top floor and take out Ma-Ma.
Which leads to be a body count that I’m pretty sure is bigger than some wars…
Dredd is rated R and absolutely deserves it. There’s pretty graphic actual violence, pretty unsettling implied violence, a whole lot of swearing, and a bunch of other stuff.
On the plus side, as IMDB notes, there’s hardly any sex or nudity.
I’m pretty squeamish, but I never had any adverse reactions to what I was watching beyond “Yup. That sure was violent.”
Viewer discretion, and all that…
On the whole, Dredd is probably one of my favourite action movies and definitely one of my favourite Sci-Fi action movies.
And it’s a strong enough introduction to the setting and the franchise that I’m actually interested into getting into some of the 2000 AD comics and learning more.
Although it didn’t do very well at the box office, Dredd has become at least somewhat vindicated by streaming. As recently as a few months ago, it was on Tubi, but when I looked again as I was finishing up this post, it seems to have left. For those of you who are also in Canada, it appears to be currently streaming on Crave.
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