Hello folks,

It’s not very often I feel compelled to write about a movie. It has to have a noticeable impact on me. Dredd (or Dredd 3D to be precise) had just that effect. Let me explain why.

My favourite types of story (be it film, literature and even video games) are the ones that create universes that I want to spend more time in. One good example is in my top 5 of all time favourite movies, The Warriors. Absolutely everything in that film made me feel that the story was just the tip of the iceberg, there were still so many tales to be told in that setting. Despite a lot of the scenes being relatively sparse of people, the New York in The Warriors felt like it was buzzing with hundreds of violent gangs and they all had stories that Id be interested in.

When the credits rolled at the end of Dredd I simply wanted more. There is a point in the movie when Judge Anderson has to decide which crime to investigate, with hundreds, if not thousands to choose from. I want to see how they handle all these other crimes. I want to see what other criminals there are out there. More please!

The other thing that really grabbed me about Dredd was some of the visuals. Firstly, the Slow-Mo. In the movie the bad-guys are peddling a drug called Slow-Mo, dispensed in inhaler type devices, which causes the user to experience life at a fraction of the speed with every colour heavily saturated. This lent itself to some beautiful and sometimes gruesome images. Not knowing about cinematography all that much I presume it’s considered a cheap trick for an easy wow factor, but it was very pleasing for my eyes.

Secondly, the setting and sets really ticked the right boxes for me. I had spent most of the day building Necromunda terrain so my brain was already dealing with grotty, war-torn buildings. It’s a kind of lo-fi sci-fi aesthetic, so to see what I had been trying to emulate appear on the screen before me was very satisfying and exciting. So much inspiration for me! I think that Necromunda probably drew a great deal of inspiration from the Judge Dredd comics.

There’s something about the dystopian/post-apocalyptic future setting that really grabs my attention and generally pleases me. I just ordered the first volume in the complete Judge Dredd series, so it will be interesting to have a read of that.

I could have probably been more articulate about why and how much I enjoyed this movie, but its been a long week and I’m tired! HA.