Oh, 2012, how beautiful you were for superhero film fans, with the likes of The Dark Knight Rises, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance all being released in a memorable 12-month span. Despite what Marvel or DC fans argue, though, the best comic book movie of that year remains Dredd, starring Karl Urban as the stoic Judge Dredd. Sure, it struggled to make enough money to buy an upsized Happy Meal for the main cast, but if money means everything, then billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are more important than everyone else (spoiler alert: they’re not, so stop simping).
Written by Alex Garland, with Urban confirming to JoBlo that Garland also directed the film even though Pete Travis’ name is in the credits, Dredd isn’t another run-of-the-mill comic book movie. It’s nasty, grimy, and the heroes aren’t really the heroes either. In fact, the judges serve as metaphors for what happens when authoritarian dictatorships take over. Mega-City One is a fascist world where human rights take a backseat, as the “law” rules with an iron fist.
While Lena Headey’s Ma-Ma might be presented as the villain, she’s no worse than the judges who shoot first and ask questions later. She and her cohorts find themselves in the situation they’re in because the powers-that-be haven’t addressed the inequality of their society. Watch this movie in 2024 after all the highly publicized issues of police violence and cover-ups over the years and it’s tough to cheer on Dredd and the crew as the paragons of virtue.
Unlike other comic book movies that were all about the fate of the world and humongous stakes, Dredd keeps the story grounded and confined to the tower block of Peach Trees, à la The Raid. It’s smaller in scale but allows for deeper character development and discovery about the issues that plague Mega-City One. By zooming in rather than out, it makes the film far more personable and relatable as it addresses the everyday reality of ordinary citizens who live in fear because of gang violence and the inefficient government who don’t do enough to protect them. It proves to be more realistic, too, as Dredd and Cassandra Anderson can’t rush in with all guns blazing as they need to consider the innocent bystanders who are often treated as nothing more than collateral damage and exploding lemmings in these kinds of films.
In terms of performances, that’s where Dredd comes alive with greatness. Urban nails his role, portraying a stony man who lives and dies by the law. Dredd refuses to break the rules, but it’s clear that Olivia Thirlby’s Anderson touches a part of his soul he’d long forgotten. She gives him a glimmer of hope in what appears to be a hopeless world. Similarly, Anderson doesn’t give up on her humanity, even though her chosen line of work requires it to be buried. By the end of the film, she’s okay with not getting the job because she would rather maintain her values.
On the antagonistic side, what more can be said about Headey’s Ma-Ma than what’s on screen? Fact: She’s a better villain than Loki, Bane, and the Lizard combined. Her name makes everyone around her tremble and even after she’s defeated, her memory lingers – no one goes for shawarmas afterward here.
Twelve years have passed since Dredd hit theaters and it appears unlikely that it will ever receive a sequel – though it received a comic book sequel in the form of Underbelly by Arthur Wyatt and Henry Flint. It’s a rotten shame – a crime, really – because Dredd 2 deserved to be made over a lot of the gutter-trash comic book movie sequels over the years. Heck, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC films, and Sony’s Random Spider-Man Without Spider-Man Universe haven’t been shy of pulling down their pants and dropping streamers on the audience and telling them it’s chocolate mousse. Yet, no matter how bad these efforts are, they all get shots at doing it all over again.
Dredd, on the other hand, sits in purgatory because it didn’t have a big studio or sizable marketing budget behind it. It’s punished by a system geared to reward those with the means. In a weird way, this feels like the exact message perpetuated by Dredd: The world is unfair.
Tell us, do you think Dredd deserved a sequel?
Dredd |
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In a violent, futuristic city where the police have the authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, a cop teams with a trainee to take down a gang that deals the reality-altering drug, SLO-MO. |
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| Studio: Reliance Entertainment, DNA Films, IM Global, UIP |
| Running Time: 95 minutes |
| Release Date: 28 September 2012 |
| Cast: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris, Lena Headey |
| Director: Pete Travis |
| Writers: Alex Garland |
| Genre: Action, Crime, Sci-Fi |
| Box Office: $41.5 million |
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