DREDD

Garland has always been a hit-and-miss screenwriter, and unfortunately this one sits on the side of a miss. Dialogue is very hokey and obvious, devoid of subtext or complexity. Director Pete Travis seems a very strange choice for director here, with a résumé that includes dramas such as ‘Omagh’ (2004) and ‘Vantage Point’ (2008). Any possibility that Travis might bring a bit more artistic weight vanishes very early on, and ‘Dredd’ suffers from an extravagant obsession with trying to be a Danny Boyle film. British filmmakers have always filled their action films with excess, and that is certainly the case here. In almost every respect, style is chosen over substance, and every opportunity for extreme violence and gore is taken with relish, but with no irony at play - it just seems gratuitous. The result is a film trying to be visually striking, but spending so much time trying that it offers little else.

Judge Dredd is certainly a character that has a lot to offer, but in this case, the offer hasn’t been taken. By boxing the film into a single location, and constructing a narrative out of bland, repetitive action, ‘Dredd’ can only imply the kind of a film a braver and more ambitious vision might have delivered.

PICTURE & SOUND
‘Dredd’ is a gritty, textured film, and Icon offers an accurate and striking 2.35:1 transfer. Colour manipulation is a big part of the film’s visual language, and in high definition, the strange, dream-like, fluro-drenched urban nightmares pop out beautifully. The same can be said of the thumping DTS-HD MA 5.1 track, alive with never-ending explosions and a generic techno-electronic score.

The film is also available on Blu-ray 3D. The film was shot in this format, and I imagine the visuals would benefit immensely from the extra dimension.

SPECIAL FEATURES
While not an extensive collection of material, the features on ‘Dredd’ offer some interesting observations and tidbits on the film and its source material. ‘Mega-City Masters: 35 Years of Judge Dredd’ is a brief but fascinating look at the history of the comic and its role as social commentary in Britain. A number of the more famous narratives covered are discussed, both giving the film much-needed context and making you wonder why, with all this material, the film itself is so dull. The rest of the featurettes cover the design and special effects of ‘Dredd’, one of the few aspects of the film that deserve attention.