So what did you think of Dredd?

Characterization 8/10 - As far as I am concerned, I loved both Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby in their roles. Urban was spot on - tough, clinical, and uncompromising. Thirlby was a really solid choice for Anderson, although she lacked the confidence of Anderson from the Comics to a certain extent - but here we were seeing a different Anderson, someone who's just starting out and not entirely confident with her powers yet. Both of them were excellent IMHO. Lena Headey was "okay" as Ma-Ma - she could have been better, although to a certain extent I feel that's as much the fault of the Director as the Actor.

UPON SAYING THAT the plot kinda got in the way of any character exposition - we are bombarded with ultra-violent images, peoples cheeks being blown out etc - which seem to go on for an eternity at a time (and yes, I know that was part of the "schtick" with the Slo-Mo drug, but come one - sometimes its too much).

Setting 6/10 - Some of it was lovely, the inside of the Mega Block for example - I did get the feeling that someone could spend their entire life inside such a structure. The long-shots of the city were great, but on the whole the "outside" looked like a modern-day demilitarized zone (even though Johannesburg fits the image of the "at-war with itself" future city really well) - OK the budget wasn't that big, but the modern-day "look" kinda killed it for me.

Costumes & Props 7/10 - Dredds Helmet, Costume, and Gun were the Biz. I didn't mind the smaller shoulder pads (I know some people have moaned and whined about them) as they were going for a more "realistic" feel to them. The Bike - not so much. It wasn't so much of a "Lawmaster", as a "Law-Moped" - sorry to fans of the Bike, but that just didn't cut it for me. Neither did the modern-day vehicles - it was like the prop guys just stopped trying at that point FFS.

Direction etc 7/10 - Whilst I felt that Travis really knew what he was doing with the action scenes, I felt that he lost his way when directing his actors. They were always standing awkwardly, as if they weren't sure of what they were doing. Lena Headey didn't come over as angry or in charge, but she seemed to be reading her lines matter of factly off an idiot board - a good Director would have spotted that early on, and tried to guide his actors better. I would have liked to have seen fewer exploding faces and more story/character development personally - I don't mind seeing violence in movies - when its done well, and drives the story line along (to a certain extent, the master of this is Quentin Tarantino for me) - but often these scenes in DREDD seem gratuitous, and with no other reason for being there other than to fill the time on the screen and offer opportunities for 3D Effects.

Did I enjoy it - yes, of course I did.

Could it have been better - unfortunately, once again the answer is yes.

Overall - 7/10
 
Agree entirely with Doctor-Warlock's review. I think on the positive side, the prospect for future Dredd movies has not been harmed by this, even though I don't expect a sequel. More than one could say about the recent Conan movie, for example.
 
From Wikipedia:

"As of 2 October 2012, the film has earned $11,201,341.00 USD from international markets and $10,100,000.00 USD from North America, a worldwide total of $21,301,341.00 USD"

"At the London Film and Comic Con in July 2012, Garland said that a North American gross in excess of $50.00 USD million for Dredd would potentially allow for sequels."
 
I for one thought it was a great action flick, good production value, good sound track, good acting (for an action movie), kept fairly close to the continuity of the original material, good script (again for an action movie.) i give it about a 8/10.

The only bad things I can say about the movie is 1) not enough advertising for it, 2) the release date was really poorly planned, it went up against some pretty stiff competition for first weekend box office takings. They say the break even point for a squeal is $50M in the US...I don't get this figure at all. They expect one market (albeit probably the largest one in the release schedule) to cover the entire cost of the movie before they will make a squeal? Although I don't think we have to worry, as the movie doesn't seem to be covering costs in all markets combined at this stage, a pity.

As to the new Judges uniform...Loved them. Not to say I don't like the classic uni, but let's face it, it isn't very practical in the field. All a Perp has to do is crawl down a culvert and he can get away because the judge can't follow as he has that honkin' huge eagle statue on his shoulder. The combination of biker leathers and ballistic armour is more "realistic" given the environment. The Lawmaster was a little under whelming, I do agree there.

Quite frankly I prefer the grittiness to the surrealism. I know that they are part of the satire of the series, but there are elements that are silly and ridiculous (ie Boing, addictive candy, a monkey as mayor*...and the freeplumbers! I'm sorry speaking as a Mason they have to go.) As far as I am concerned these elements can't be added to any possible franchise as they would be laughable in the extreme.

* Though as things progress in today’s politics I'm not so sure if this wouldn't be a good idea. A chimp certainly couldn't do any worse a job then most political leaders today. :lol:
 
Judge Shaw said:
They say the break even point for a squeal is $50M in the US...I don't get this figure at all. They expect one market (albeit probably the largest one in the release schedule) to cover the entire cost of the movie before they will make a squeal? Although I don't think we have to worry, as the movie doesn't seem to be covering costs in all markets combined at this stage, a pity
It is the usual practice these days to mark an US non-indie flick a bomb if it doesn't do suitably well in the US movie theatre circuit. In fact if it doesn't make megabugs (at the very least relative to the production cost) on the opening weekend it is considered "likely to bomb" and sadly, that isn't too far off the mark since the movies that don't do well initially tend to vanish fast from the circuit. But regardless, that's how the suits count it these days. It used to be a little better just a few decades back, for example Star Wars still had time to build up a (rapid) following when already in the theatres.

There are exception such as Hellboy that (at least reportedly) got a sequel based on the wordwide DVD market.
 
As to the new Judges uniform...Loved them. Not to say I don't like the classic uni, but let's face it, it isn't very practical in the field. All a Perp has to do is crawl down a culvert and he can get away because the judge can't follow as he has that honkin' huge eagle statue on his shoulder. The combination of biker leathers and ballistic armour is more "realistic" given the environment. The Lawmaster was a little under whelming, I do agree there.

Agreed. It's instantly recognisable as what it's meant to be, but doesn't look ridiculously bulky and looks like it actually offers some protection to something other than the knees. Can we see judge models with this style of armour, please?

Quite frankly I prefer the grittiness to the surrealism. I know that they are part of the satire of the series, but there are elements that are silly and ridiculous (ie Boing, addictive candy, a monkey as mayor*...and the freeplumbers! I'm sorry speaking as a Mason they have to go.) As far as I am concerned these elements can't be added to any possible franchise as they would be laughable in the extreme.
The grittiness works very well. The trick with the sillyness is to do it in a subtle way; there's plenty of humour in (for example) the marvel films but it's humour, not truly silly stuff. I like the way it was done in this film - lots of little nods to various things but nothing plot-central; you can't afford to have an audience needing to know this stuff to follow the story.

You could, however, easily have addictive candy (for example) - it doesn't have to be 'miraculously tasty' or whatever. It's going to have fake sweetener, that might (belatedly) be found to be addictive.

Equally, you're not going to have a film centred on Boing. But it's no dafter having a skate park in the background of a storyline than a Zorb ball ramp - even today people know what those are. Boing is just a zorb ball available in can form. You don't have to explain it, or even focus on it, anymore than people bother to explain why starships have gravity that stays on even when there's a power failure.
 
I suppose if those elements were strictly regulated to background events they would be chuckle worthy. Though a scene with a sky surfer could be kind of cool.

Also, I suppose you could have "addictive" candy in a storyline , but only as an attractive delivery system for the actual narcotic...hmm, now that could be a really good, not to mention insidious, idea.
 
Well, looks like the sequels are a wash; I haven't seen the world wide figures but I don't think the Box Office covered the cost to make the movie, let alone the $50M it needed in the N. Am. audience. I saw recently that Dredd opened in only about 2500 theaters in the US, pretty small number given other sci-fi movies. I think some exec somewhere at the studio really didn't want this movie to work. :(
 
I wouldn't write it off just yet; some films get a new lease of life on DVD (especially ones with favourable critical reaction and, most crucially, strong word of mouth). A lot of people wait til DVD with an unknown (to them) quantity : )
 
Dredd was more-or-less an indie film, from what Iunderstand. Since Indie film makers don't have the money to throw around that the large studios have Box office targets are pretty much critical for things like sequels. I don't think DVD sales will save the day in this case, but I suppose anything is possible.
 
Don't forget that the first Austin Powers film was a failure at the box office. It was the success in the home video/dvd market that eventually led to the sequels.

Again Shawshank Redemption wasn't a big office hit but found it's audience with the home market and subsequently became a hit.

Now say Dredd is £20 million short of guaranteeing a sequel, all it would take is a million copies of the dvd sold worldwide at release.

Yes I'm being optomistic!!! :wink:

I think we've more hope of tv series than another film.
 
nozza_uk said:
Don't forget that the first Austin Powers film was a failure at the box office. It was the success in the home video/dvd market that eventually led to the sequels.

Again Shawshank Redemption wasn't a big office hit but found it's audience with the home market and subsequently became a hit.

Now say Dredd is £20 million short of guaranteeing a sequel, all it would take is a million copies of the dvd sold worldwide at release.

Yes I'm being optomistic!!! :wink:

I think we've more hope of tv series than another film.


Ack! Did you really put Austin Powers and Judge Dredd in the same post? :shock: :wink: I haven't seen the most recent box office returns for the movie but lst I saw the movie was something like $45M short of the $50M US gross required for a sequel. :(

I'm not so sure aobut the TV series news...I think that could easily go the way of that terrible RoboCop series.

"Though obviously let's hope the standard of sequels doesn't dip quite as sharply with 'Dredd'...."

The treatments I heard were fairly promising for the other two movies. The second was going to the early history of Dredd, and the third was reported to center around a Dark Judges story line.
 
Yep, I did mention Austin Powers and Judge Dredd in the same paragraph! Just pointing out that even though the film didn't achieve the required $50 million in the US box office, it may well recover it's costs in the home video/dvd market. After all, it has already achieved $36 million worldwide against an estimated $45 million movie production outlay.

If some-one like HBO or AMC produced the series, it could work. After all, look how good "The Walking Dead" is on cable.

The biggest hindrance to all of this is how relatively unknown Judge Dredd is in the US.
 
"If some-one like HBO..."

Oh Grud, no! HBO does nothing but pander to the lowest common denominator in the audiance. Correct me if I am wrong, but did they not invent the character of Roz the prostitute in the Game of Thrones S1 so they could put in more explict sex scenes (even more then are already in the book) because I sure don't remember her being in the first book? If HBO were to get it they'll have DeMarco doing the nasty with Dredd somewhere between ep 2 and 3. I can't remember the last time I saw something from HBO I liked.

I would like to think you are right about the DVD sales pushing it over the top sequel wise. One thing for sure it will be a quick turn around for the DVD release...Jan 8th if rumours are true.
 
Well, to show my hope that DVD sales will rejuvanate the possibility of a sequel I will be pre ordering my copy of Dredd on Monday. One good thing about the low box office; we don't have long to wait for the DVD release.

Buy the Dredd DVD, or it's 30 years in the Cubes Citizen! 8)
 
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