Dredd 3D (2012) Movie Review.

    Dredd (2012), Directed by Pete Travis, starring Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby co-starring Lena Headey and Wood Harris. Takes place in an overrun dystopian society full of gangs and chaos in an irradiated wasteland supposively set in America. But appointed cops known as judges are the established law and order of the city, the notorious Dredd being one of them. It is a violent metropolis with large buildings made up entirely of slums ruled by different gangs, but the drug lord known as Ma-Ma eventually takes over all 200 floors, eliminating rival gangs and anyone who interferes. She and her gang introduce a drug on the streets called Slo-mo which tricks the mind into thinking that everything being processed in moving at 1% speed which ties in perfectly with the slo-mo effects making it an actual logical use  throughout the movie. It is up do Dredd and his female rookie accomplice Judge Cassandra Anderson to rid the slums of this drug lord and to bring justice to the chaos. 

  Overall a very impressive film, displaying the latest visual effects (not special effects). This movie introduces something quite new to the action genre with its highly stylized slo-mo capture going where no movie has gone before. It actually shows in great detail the bullets ripping through human flesh as if they were ballistic gels, quite impressive to watch! The colors and stylization used in this movie were fresh and vibrant. This film will set the bar for future movies to come. On the down side the movie felt like it dragged a bit during the middle of the movie with certain plot points that seemed unbuyable, for example Olivia Thirlby's character was a mutant that can read minds yet she choses to be deployed as a judge. For about 30 minutes of the movie they bring along this cliche'd black thug that was quite irritating at times and felt unneeded, they should've just killed him off once they got him. The visual effects although great sorta distanced me from feeling for these characters and seemed like a movie that is all explosion yet no exposition. Other than that the villain in the movie played by Lena Headey was very well played, not being too cartoony yet having quite an intimidating presence on-screen. This movie also does contain some very surprising twists that made its flaws completely forgivable, straying away from the generic good cop, bad thug, shoot 'em up plot. Overall score: B+