Theme: Dystopian

Dredd (2012) – Karl Urban and Olivia Thirlby

This movie is made to appear a bit less dated than the previous one. Unfortunately, there’s no Stallone in this movie — instead, Karl Urban plays the lead role, and his voice seems relatively timid and unconvincing at first, but it grows on you — he did alright in the end, but lacked personality — kind of reminiscent of Mandalorian style.

In-keeping with the original, it gets a bit gruesome, for example, people being drugged, skinned alive and thrown off a towerblock within the first 15 minutes. Quite distasteful, and typical of Hollywood. The movie continues to glorify drug-based highs and gory violence too. An automatic downgrade is warranted.

Negatives aside, it gets interesting by half an hour in, as Judge Dredd and his psychic rookie apprentice called Anderson (well played by Olivia Thirlby) get trapped in a tower block by the criminal gang that runs it. Unfortunately though, that pretty much spells the end of the movie already since they stay trapped in that building for the next hour.

I rate this movie roughly on a par with the original — a bit worse on story, but a bit better in terms of cinematography and modern effects. That makes it a Bang Average movie, which seems fair. It had far more potential off the back of its core concept & genre, but was never set up to achieve anywhere near its potential, it seems. Still, it wasn’t bad — it did alright in holding attention, if you can excuse a bunch of short distasteful patches that warrant a bit of fast-forwarding for anyone who’s seen this movie before and knows roughly what to expect.

Judge Dredd (1995) – Sylvester Stallone

This movie is a weird combination of being already quite dated, yet futuristic in genre.

It’s frequently funny while being delivered in a serious tone — funny in how it accurate captures and exaggerates the inherent flaws in the long arm of the law.

It gets a bit filthy half way through, after Dredd gets wrongly accused, and convicted, then his prisoner transport shuttle gets grounded, and Dredd gets captured by a family of cannibals. Fortunately this scene doesn’t last too long, and evolves into something mildly interesting, albeit a bit slow and boring still.

It gets a bit gruesome at the end, as half-made clones come to life looking like zombies covered in goo. That whole scene is reminiscent of the final battle scene from Demolition Man — also starring Sylvester Stallone (alongside Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullock) — from 2 years prior. Not necessarily in the zombie theme, but everything else about the set and vibe is similar.

I’m going to rate this movie Bang Average, and that may even be slightly generous — it had a lot of potential but wasn’t really played well to satisfy the action hero movie fan. That makes it a similar level to the 2012 remake, starring Karl Urban, which I also rated Bang Average, even if it has a different mix of pros & cons.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995) – Keanu Reeves, Dina Meyer, Dolph Lundgren and Udo Kier

This movie features Hackers style music & visuals, which is not surprising since it’s from the same year (1995).

It also features agents in long black leather coats, and probably inspired many things about The Matrix, except that this movie is about the data being stored inside a cybernetically enhanced human, rather than the human’s mind being captured by a virtual matrix. Although there is one woman who lives on in a virtual realm after dying, like a kind of AI. Keanu Reeves‘s character Johnny even does a bit of Tai Chi in this movie, early on, to help cope with brain capacity overload.

Dina Meyer plays Jane, the cybernetically enhanced bodyguard Johnny hires to save his life and help him get where he needs to be. They become quite close.

A youngish Dolph Lundren (in his mid to late 30s) with long messy hair plays one of the main baddies.

Udo Kier (the pureblood burnt in the sun, in Blade) plays one of the main characters early on, who double crosses Johnny then is killed by the Yakuza when Johnny gets away.

This movie was probably great in its day, and is still quite memorable but the pace is a bit slow and the action is a bit mild by the best of modern standards. Still, the acting quality is real even if they seem to be slightly winging it with a shallow plot and loose script put together on the fly.

By half way through, this movie looks set for a Below Average rating, but that’s no knock on the acting level, it’s more due to the datedness of the special effects and the tameness of adrenaline, and with all that considered, it’s quite a respectable rating. Some bits are of course better than others. But the second hour is very trashy throughout — barely watchable in fact. So I think a final score of So-So is plenty fair, if not generous.

Oblivion (2013) – Tom Cruise and Olga Kurylenko

Just one year before the epic movie that was Edge Of Tomorrow, this movie sees Tom Cruise in his element, rebelliously flying planes and riding motorbikes, but not in the usual context. Oblivion is a dystopian lethal tech-controlled dictatorship world where what few humans remain on Earth are expected to follow a strict regime.

Although it’s a fairly simple movie in terms of having few characters – the closing credits list a cast of literally 7 characters long before getting into Stunt Coordinators then listing a bunch of background characters who we never get to know; and although it has a potentially over-memorable plot; it still does very well at sustaining attention even after having seen it several times before and recently enough such that many other movies would become unable to entertain again.

On the balance of pros and cons, I’m going to rate it Decent. It doesn’t have the excitement of Edge Of Tomorrow, and isn’t as slick as Hitman, so it’s neither Tom’s nor Olga‘s best movie for my taste, but it’s not terribly far off — it’s in good company.

Morgan Freeman plays a supporting role, as does Andrea Riseborough (as Tom’s partner, until he realises he’s been brainwashed) — they both do a pretty good job — not wowing, but appropriate.