Runtime:
96 minutes
Directed
by: Pete Travis
Starring:
Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headley, Wood Harris
From:
Lionsgate
Here
is a movie that came out elsewhere before it made its way to North
America yesterday. Most of the reviews I heard online from random
action fans was that the movie was real good. However, action fans in
North America have either said that it's great... or that it's
terrible. Little middle ground. Personally, I do not understand the
criticisms and how some say it's comparable to some of the lamer
action movies that have come out in recent years; you know, Lockout,
Doom, or Babylon A.D. I just don't get the hate. Did those people
expect way more than they should have? All this is is a film about
two cops who go into a fortified building to bring down a ruthless
drug dealer and that's it, and it didn't need to be anything more
than that?
After
reading my Judge Dredd review you should know that the Judges in this
dystopian universe have the power of judge, jury and executioner.
This time, Dredd has an evaluation day with a rookie on the force
(Thirlby); she has a unique power which I won't spoil but it does
prove useful a few times throughout. Remember, this is a really crazy
world where crimes happen al the time. They end up in a giant
building which is quite lawless and ran by a ruthless crazy woman
known as Ma-Ma (Headley). The Judges capture one of her henchmen
(Harris) and to avoid him talking to the law and ruining her
operation, they get stuck in the building and many baddies go after
them to kill them off. It doesn't get much more complicated than
that.
I
know that people have compared this to The Raid: Redemption and in
terms of the general story (law enforcement go into a big fortified
building that has general residents in it but also contain many bad
guys and is run by a vicious crazy boss who deals in drugs), yes,
yesh it is quite similar and it was just happenstance how that turned
out. But, that's about it for the similarities. Here, you get many
shootouts and as I already mentioned, Thirlby's unique ability
helping out too. It is a simple meat & potatoes film that doesn't
inspire to be more than one of those old school simple movies you'd
expect in the late 80's; however, I thought it was done real well and
I don't get the criticisms. Sure, some things could have been done
better and the action scenes in general weren't too inventive.
Overall, though, I really dug this. The Raid is better; that said,
this will likely be on my top 10 list once the year is over with.
I
should mention that the drug in question is known as Slo-Mo and with
that kind of name, it's no surprise that once you ingest it, time
slows down to 1/100 its actual speed. That leads to some arty and
cool moments. Besides the two leads being cool and doing their jobs
well, the character of Ma-Ma is sweet; in a macho film like that the
villain being a crazy drugged-up woman who is amazingly ruthless....
pretty awesome, I say. Even the score (described as Nine Inch
Nails-esque, and I'll go with that as it's the best comparison I can
come up with) rules and it fit the film. You can go here to listen to
all the tracks, by the way.
I'll
be back Monday night.
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