Thought to myself, that’d be cool to see this weekend. But it’s not released here for another month yet. Hmph.
Karl Urban is shaping up to be another Gary Oldman in his ability to play different roles and lose himself in them so much that you don’t always recognize him. I just hope he gets more chances to do that and keeps on proving it.
And that came out poorly, but hopefully conveyed the idea.
Yeah, he’s pretty versatile alright.
If you haven’t seem them already you should check out Urban’s work in The Price of Milkand especially the excellent (if disturbing)Out of the Blue.
I was going to mention this film. Mostly because my friend directed it. (I still haven’t watched it, but that’s because I lived near there when it happened in real life)
Fair enough, you probably won’t want to if might bring back painful memories. You should get Robert Sarkies to direct more movies though, he’s pretty damn good at it.
Of course, keeping his helmet on throughout does have some effect on his recognizability in this particular rôle. 
True, but you put that same helmet on Stallone and everyone still immediately knows it’s Stallone.
Of course, if I didn’t know who the actor was I damn well would have made it a point to find out- I spend the whole movie thinking to myself “That is a damned impressive masked performance!”
Think of all the tools of the craft that are taken away from an actor wearing a mask for an entire movie like that. Urban had the use of his mouth and chin, which gives him a slight advantage over my personal #1 and #2 for masked acting performances*, but it was an impressive performance nonetheless. I might give him the #3 spot.
*My Personal #1 and #2 for Masked Acting Performances:
#1 Claude Rains in The Invisible Man
#3 Hugo Weaving in V for Vendetta
I saw it last night with a friend. I thought it was a pretty good film for what it was, and though I’ve never read the source material, I’m familiar enough with it to think the film captured its commentary well enough. It’s not a must-see, but is good enough that if you think you want to see it, you definitely should.
Saw it yesterday, theater was empty. Which was unfortunate because it was a GOOD file. Very good in fact. You could tell it was a little low budge on the CG but it made it work. Great story, acting (Urban was fantastic) was good, exactly what this movie should have been. Solid movie. Go see.
I saw it over the weekend and liked it. Pretty much a violence-action flick: scores of killers try to kill Dredd and Anderson, scores of killers- including their leader- die as a result. I thought the characters and setting translated well in a Mega City that was more “twenty minutes into the future” than the futuristic comic book version. I did wonder about a couple of plot holes (mild spoilers)Once Dredd and Anderson got out onto the balcony and signaled Control, why the hell didn’t they call for an immediate airlift evac? Why did Dredd call in basically the equivalent of “officer needs assistance” instead of raising a 9-alarm red alert that terrorists were in control of a bloc? And why when they knew they had a dire ammo situation did Dredd and Anderson ignore the scores of guns they could have taken off the gang members they killed?
I left wondering why it was getting such generally positive reviews.
Some awful dialog but generally an ok action movie. The kind that two years later I’m not entirely sure I ever saw.
A bit of a problem with it being essentially the same set up as The Raid: Redemption (not saying it copied or anything, but having seen that this year it did generate a strong sense of deja vu).
Dredd has bombed at the US box office and the talk now is that a sequel is unlikely.
http://io9.com/5945745/therell-probably-never-be-another-judge-dredd-movie
Bugger.
How well was it marketed in the US?
I just saw it this afternoon and enjoyed it. Setting it mostly inside one building and just having a few shots of the mega city was a probably smart way to use the budget.
I think some positive reviews might have been partly because they had such low expectations.
Also I had the same deja vu from The Raid. It was different enough to not be too distracting, but it was still funny to notice the similarities.
Not well marketed at all as far as I can tell. Of movies that have come out recently, I remember seeing tons of TV ads for Looper, some ads for Trouble with the Curve, and House at the End of the Street. I’ve seen some print and billboard ads for other movies recently. But I don’t remember seeing any ads anywhere for Dredd, other than a poster at the theater a few weeks ago when I went to see Lawless. I wouldn’t have been aware of the movie if it wasn’t for people discussing it online and for the surprisingly good reviews it had been getting.
It’s not a movie for everyone so I don’t know how successful it would have been even if it had a better release date and better marketing. But it definitely wasn’t helped by the marketing.
A pity, because it actually has a terrific poster which could have come straight from the comic itself.
Saw it this evening, and was so impressed: this is the Dredd film fans have waited 35 years for. It’s taut and lean film-making with nothing wasted, and it really plays to its to strengths of its relatively low budget with a tight, confined story in a claustrophobic setting. Urban was note-perfect as the man himself, and Olivia Thirlby’s Anderson was an excellent balance of vulnerability and toughness that could have come straight out of the comic. Could have used a bit more humour to leaven the grimness and brutality- this film makes Robocop look like The Rocketeer - but overall an excellent effort. Go see it if you get the chance.
I suspect that it was the 3D that caused it to tank. Audiences are willing to pay the surcharge (AKA the Blockbuster Tax) when they’re going to see something like the Avengers, but not to see a B-movie, no matter how well reviewed.
The 3D actually worked terrifically well in this movie, like in the slo-mo drug sequences.