The Mark of Zorro: DREDD 3D Gets an A-

Now I, like many people, was not a fan of the original Judge Dredd with Sylvester Stallone. I remember it being corny, childish and not very fun. Usually action movies are supposed to excite us and by the end of the movie, should have us leaving with a big smile on our faces. Judge Dredd did not accomplish either of these things for me.

Although I was not a fan of the original, I was still pretty excited to hear that they were remaking it. Surely the new makers of the film know that the original was bad and will try to do it right this time. Plus now that we have better effects now than 1995 (when Judge Dredd came out) some really exciting action scenes and cinematography could be present. I knew this movie was going to be good because it's hard to fail twice.

After seeing Dredd the "can't fail twice" theory is still accurate. The new Dredd is everything I that I had hoped to see and everything the original should have been.

With all of the blood, witty one-liners and another Batman throat cancer growl, Dredd is the movie Dredd comic fans have been waiting for. Not only does it meet expectations as an action movie the surprisingly good acting and story-telling make this a good action movie which is rare nowadays.

I usually don't start out with the negative but I have to in this case because the negative is the story itself. This story, on a whole, is not at all original. The main story line is basically The Raid: Redemption crossed with a rookie cop plot who gets unexpected action on his/her first day and a drug bust. These story lines have been in hundreds of stories and made this movie seem a bit familiar.

However I do not consider this a big fault to the movie because of the there are a few minor unexpected directions this film takes and the fact that this film was so enjoyable.

Alright now on to the good and trust me there is plenty of good in the movie. The acting was great especially by Karl Urban and Lena Headey. Karl Urban was great as Dredd and will always and forever be considered by me as the real Dredd, not Stallone. Lena Headey had a breakout performance as the gang boss/ drug distributer. She plays on of the most evil, but not excessively crazy, villiains I have seen in the past couple of years.

Something that I really respected was the fact that this was the first movie since The Matrix where slow motion effects weren't annoying. This was because slow motion is actually part of the plot because the drug that Lena Headey is distributing is called Slow-mo. This drug makes your brain slow down to one percent of its normal speed. Slow motion felt cool again and not like an overused gimmick. This effect along with all of the other gorgeous and slick effects set up some really great action scenes.

All of the great action, storytelling and acting make Dredd stand out from other films while lack of originality and a few minor nit-picks like Dredd's voice not staying constant (sometimes he growls and sometimes he doesn't) and the so-so dialogue (sometimes Dredd's one liners work and sometimes they don't) keep this film from being one of the great action films. Overall I give Dredd an A-.