I really was quite a fan of Dredd, I thought the actors, post-staff, director, writers and cinematographer all did an outstanding job. However, there is one man in the crew who makes the rest look bad. By comparison. Because Paul Leonard-Morgan's soundtrack is by leaps and bounds the standout piece of what was already a decent film by its own right. His work on Dredd is praise enough (he also did spectacular thing's for Limitless in 2011). I never got into the deeper Judge Dredd universe (ie. 2000 AD comics) and almost all of my knowledge comes from cursory internet searches, and that "Dredd VS Death" video game. But from what I can gather, Dredd is a more honest depiction of the source material than the Stallone-led Judge Dredd of '95. So the music is outstanding, the Slow-Mo scenes are innovative and spectacularly produced and the specialised ammunition are astounding to watch. These are the three best parts of the film, in descending order, which to be fair, means that the gimmicks of Dredd are its most impressive feature. It's story is not broad (More of a "day in the life" than "save the human race" deal) and its characters are not greatly explored (though certainly not shallow), and it's mostly held together by these aforementioned "gimmicks", but more power to them! Better to have a solid baseline interconnected with deeply original fascination, than to have a boring rehashed piece of crap baseline, loosely stapled together with some poor excuse for dumping the same cliche $100,000 CGI explosions we've already seen four hundred times this quarter. Surprisingly, New Zealender Karl Urban (Star Trek, Star Trek: Into Darkness, LotR trilogy) makes for a better Dredd than I'd anticipated. Having a psychic was something I was initially sceptical of, too, however Olivia Thrilby (Juno, The Darkest Hour) put my concerns to rest after a long enough period to buy her role (about 25 minutes). And Lena Headey (Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Purge, Game of Thrones) I've liked since she played Queen Gorgo from 300 nearly a decade ago, so she"s always a safe bet in my books, particularly in the role of relentless druglord Ma-Ma, she really is at home playing ruthless women of power, isn't she? That all said, Dredd is not the best film I've ever seen. It's not even the best action-focused science-fiction film released in 2012 I've ever seen. But it takes risks, and that's nothing to be scoffed at. We need more Dredd's in our film industries, something to break up the monotony of most of Hollywood. Something that doesn't need to go big, or tick x amount of acceptability boxes, it's satisfied just being good. 77%
-Gimly