Dredd 3D review: Pass

I'm torn on this one.  Honestly, I never had this feeling about a movie before and quite frankly I'm baffled.  It's not that it's a bad movie.  It's more the idea that what I liked about this movie are also the things I also didn't like so much.  How can I both like and not like the same thing at the same time?

Here's some examples:

1) If you haven't heard, this is a basic story about Judge Dredd taking a rookie under his wing and investigating a triple homicide that turns into a drug war.  On the streets, there is a new drug that makes the brain feel like time slows down. 

Here's what I liked: the slow motion scenes are breath-taking.  I mean when I first saw the villian (Ma-Ma played by Lena Headey) sitting in the bathtub playing with the water, I was just blown away. 

Here's what I didn't like: They kept doing it.  And with a movie only an hour and 38 minutes long, having several slow motion scenes started to feel padded; like the movie just couldn't get to that magical 90 minute run-time.

2) The scale of this movie is completely different from the Sylvester Stallone movie.  The Stallone movie was much larger in scale.  Dredd had his arch-nemesis, who was also his brother, and his clone, and all the head judged had been killed and the future of the city is unclear.  This movie is much more of a "day in the life".  This was a routine day in the life of a Judge.  It was a simple investigation and then all hell broke loose. 

Here's what I liked: A story like Judge Dredd needs to be smaller scale.  It needs to be focused because it's much more nuanced than the simple action story.  A lot of the drama from this movie is ingrained in the premise of the whole story.  The Earth is in ruins, billions live in Mega Cities, and the only way for there to be any kind of law and order is to empower police officers with absolute authority.  We need to see what that means in the setting of the story before we completely trash it. 

Here's what I didn't like: It didn't feel special.  At the end of the movie it didn't feel like anything was accomplished.  Because the story really didn't end.  The case was closed, but it was one bloody case out of countless more that day and many more to come. 

3) This movie took itself far more seriously than the Stallone version.

Here's what I liked: It was much more dark, gritty, and far more faithful to the comic books.  Everything was geared toward a much harder look at Judge Dredd.  Dredd even did the grizzled Batman voice. 

Here's what I didn't like: It took itself too seriously.  The first kill of the movie a guy was shot in the mouth with an incindiary bomb.  It was hilarious.  The guy's head melted from the inside out.  Have you ever seen one of those pumpkins on halloween that had a candle that was just a little too big?  It was kinda like that.  But then we're seeing people get skinned alive and thrown two-hundred stories straight down... in slow motion... Later we get three chain guns leveling an entire floor of the building, and then we get threats of rape and mutilation.

The one thing I absolutely didn't like was Dredd's partner Judge Anderson.  She's a psychic.... Yeah... uhm... how can I say this... Don't.  Do.  That!  Here's the problem with making a character able to read people's minds.  It undermines the drama and creates plot holes.  Dredd and Anderson arrest a guy named Kay for the murder of the three guys they were called to investigate.  The only way they knew he was the guy was because Anderson read his mind.  So they decide to take him in for interrogation..... Why?  Read his mind.  They do it later in the movie anyway.  Why not read his mind right there?  The very reason they get trapped in the building in the first place wasn't because they were LISTENING to what they were saying, it was because they SAW the Judges walking away with Kay in cuffs and didn't want him to talk.  Then later Anderson used her psychic powers to enter into his mind and play around with his perceptions.  Again, if she had that kind of power, why didn't she use it more?  How about using it after she established this power to save her own neck?  Why not swiss cheese Ma-Ma's brain?  Later on there are rogue Judges and one was going to kill Anderson and she used her psychic powers to realize it.  So instead of getting the dramatic tension of is she going to die, instead she shoots the rogue cop and we move on with our lives. 

Do you see the problem?  Don't make characters psychic.

This is why I'm torn on this movie.  I thought it was a great movie, but man it really bothers me the stuff I like are also gnawing at me.  Go see it.  It's a great action flick, it's a great comic book flick, but man I just can't shake these love/hate feelings.