Am I sad that we never get to see Karl Urban's face in Dredd? Yes. Yes I am. Is it still a pretty good film? Yes. Yes it is. It's not the smartest or most emotionally complex story, but then, I'm willing to suspend my expectations of that kind of thing for certain movies that acknowledge their complete disinterest in telling that kind of story. Which this one does. Plus, everyone is so well cast in this. Olivia Thirlby is great as Cassandra (fitting name), the psychic green trainee on her first (disastrous) day on the job as a judge, and Lena Headey is absolutely perfect as the clearly unbalanced and psychotic "Ma-Ma" drug lord who controls the building that Dredd and Cassandra come to investigate. The story escalates both literally (as they make their way higher and higher up the building, each floor offering successively more violent and desperate fighting) and figuratively, as Ma-Ma realizes she can't evade or dissuade Dredd and decides only one of them is leaving the block.
Anyway, is it the most masterfully impressive film ever made? Nope. But it's pretty damn beautiful, with an absolutely perfect use of slomo sequences. And while the story isn't winning any awards for writing, it's consistent enough within the universes it establishes. I'm pretty much on board with this, even its bleak end for a character as great as Ma-Ma.
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