When I was 11 years old, I got a little warm and fuzzy thinking about a man named Sylvester. He was Rocky, Rambo, a Demolition Man and a bit Over the Top, yet despite my NAMBLA level crush on the action movie star I couldn't get excited about his role in Judge Dredd. Even for my young, dumb mind, I wasn't buying what Sly was selling there. I literally saw that movie once and haven't really cared to ever revisit. Stallone has never been the Judge to me.
Now he never will be. Why? Because Karl damn Urban is Judge Dredd. This is one of those rare moments I can say this, but who needs the original when the remake kicks this much ass?
The music pulses. The bullets are piercing. The punches are vicious. The photography dazzles the senses.
Dredd is a blistering, blood soaked movie and I had a blast viewing it, although I was a bit distracted by how remarkably similar much of it felt to the Indonesian slice of action insanity released during the very same year in the United States, The Raid. The premise isn't literally exactly the same and the action is delivered differently, with far less trained martial arts and far more bodies free falling 50 floors to their death, but the concept is all there. The police stuck inside a building run by a drug lord. An offer to the residents to kill rather than comply. The frenzy of gun fire across an open foyer in the center of the complex. All of it felt very familiar, and to be clear, this isn't any sort of accusation of idea or straight up content stealing since I doubt very much that would have even been possible given the timetable of the two films releases. All I am saying is, when you have already fallen madly in love with a strikingly similar experience, it's challenging to do the same with the one that comes second.
This is only a slight dismissal though because really, what a treat Dredd is. If you are a fan of stylized action and hyper-violent fun, you will do no wrong with these 90 sexy minutes of carnage.
4/5
