Travis paints a dark and comic-book-style world polluted by crime and corruption, and fuelled by violence, adding a wry and witty sense of humour to soften the blow.
This exhilarating futuristic neo-noir action story takes place in Mega City One - a vast, violent metropolis of over 400 million citizens living in perpetual fear. The only ones attempting to impose order in the urban chaos are The Judges. Law enforcers, juries, judges and executioners rolled into one.
The epitome of these judges is Dredd, with Karl Urban delivering an outstanding performance as a no-nonsense law enforcer who has to road test a rookie judge, the powerful psychic Cassandra Anderson Olivia Thirlby, who recently delivered an astounding performance in Being Flynn, is superb as the almost innocent, but not quite so fragile Rambolina.
Urban, who showed us his villainous side as a cold-hearted killer in Red and the towering villain Black Hat in Priest, has a difficult task in Dredd of bringing a character to life; during the film Dredd never removes his helmet and Urban has to play a "faceless" anti-hero who manages to bring across the emotional depth of a complex character perfectly, also adding some humour with quirky one liners.
The judges' journey into the investigation of a seemingly routine homicide in the notorious Peach Trees mega-block- a 200-storey vertical slum run by the pitiless Ma-Ma clan - turns into a war zone when the judges attempt to arrest one of Ma-Ma's chief henchmen and they are caught in a vicious and relentless fight for survival that is unlike anything you have seen before.
Unearthing a modern drug-induced cesspit in which crime rules, Dredd is judge and executioner who goes to the extreme to justify justice. It's a cruel and mad, mad world; a madhouse where there is no sanity and crazy conquers the helpless victims of a drug mama from hell (a terrific performance by Lena Headey, who viewers will remember from Game of Thrones). From its stylish opening and heavy theatrical overtones, every frame is manipulated to the extreme, with Travis using visual dynamics to communicate a language ruled by aggression and bloodshed.
South African viewers will delight in seeing how the Newtown area of Joburg and the Artscape and Civic Centre areas of Cape Town have gloriously mutated into a magnificent and stunning futuristic landscape: the scrupulous and spellbinding creativity and overwhelming visual effects were realised by Senior Vfx Supervisor Jon Thum, who began his career as a 3D animator and Flame artist in London and who won the Oscar for The Matrix; production designer Mark Digby, who won the Excellence in Production Design Award from the Art Directors Guild for Slumdog Millionaire; and director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle, who won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Cinematography for Slumdog Millionaire, and has brought his expertise and creative talent to Dredd in ground-breaking work in 3D.
Humanity and humanness are erased as bodies pile up like rag dolls, escalating into a bizarre balletic war zone where good battles evil, and evil challenges compassion and reason.
It's good to see local actors like Scott Sparrow, Luke Tyler, Porteus Xandau and Andile Mngadi strut their acting muscles, but sad to see them literally explode in the most spectacular way.
If you are looking for a surreal adrenaline rush in which reality and fantasy collide in a vicious rollercoaster ride, Dredd guarantees to keep your heart pumping. It's one trip into the future you will remember long after your nerves have settled and the world around you has returned to its normal self. Dredd has the remarkable ability to do what cinema does best: transport the imagination into a feast of thought-provoking spectacle, resulting in first-rate entertainment and visceral escapism.
Note: Dredd is fortunately not a remake of the lame 1995 Sylvester Stallone version, but a refreshing and original adaptation of John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's revered comic strip.
The future world of Judge Dredd created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra back in 1977 for 2000AD has grown to have a life of its own. With countless stories and characters, it was voted best British comic and Best Comic in the World Ever at the National Comics Awards.
Now, the endlessly inventive mind of writer Alex Garland brings Dredd to life as a futuristic neo-noir action film that returns the celebrated character to the dark, visceral incarnation from John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra's revered comic strip.
Alex Garland said: "I grew up reading Judge Dredd. The incredible writers and artists of 2000AD were formative influences on me. Andrew, Allon and I have developed this adaptation of Judge Dredd with an emphasis on adrenaline and realism, but with all the scale and spectacle of Mega City One."
And Judge Dredd co-creator John Wagner and 2000AD are on board. "Alex Garland's script is faithful to the original concept that made Judge Dredd a favourite badass hero. It's a high-octane sleigh ride through the dark underbelly of the vast future city. A fan pleaser."
Producer Andrew Macdonald said that they were thinking of real-life cities when imagining Mega City One: "Dredd is a futuristic crime story and I wanted to make it realistically. The first film tried to recreate everything and that's very difficult to do, whereas Blade Runner or District 9 use a real place and blend it in with the future. So there's a feel that around you there are buildings that are old and new. There's a mixture of stuff like Megacities in the world today, slightly crazy and out of control, like Sao Paolo, Mexico City, Jakarta or Joburg, and the production of Dredd took a positive turn when Macdonald met District 9 star Sharlto Copley who invited him to South Africa, where they teamed up with Michael Murphey of Kalahari Pictures, the South African producers behind District 9. The availability of the newly built Cape Town Film Studios provided the ideal place to recreate Mega City One in South Africa.
Read more at www.writingstudio.co.za/page4213.html
