Dredd standing there almost in slight disappointment that the device didn't have enough range to go off is just one of the many subtle details that made this movie great
So the theory is that this dead-man transmitter sends a signal only after it loses pulse, instead of constantly giving the don't-blow signal as long as there is life? That's just stupid design. He could have just shot it.
@@csn583 that would be terrible design because one badly refracted radio signal bouncing off a wall or interfered with by a piece of metal in the wrong angle = death. Its too risky outside of a complex specifically designed to do it, and that would be a terrible reason to design a defensive complex in such a way.
Karl Urban and Olivia Thirby nailed their roles. Dredd was an amazing movie. Lena Headey showed again why she is a master at the baddy. Love this film, could watch it over and over.
@@robjohnson8522 I must disagree about her being hot, couldn't be bothered to know the rest. She is kind of funny in the few clips I've watched of her live streams. I prefer 115 pound 5'2" long-haired brunettes with 36C chest and crystal blue eyes. Huh, that's odd. I just described my wife.
@@robjohnson8522She is fine with it I'm sure. Hollywood is shallow and fickle, and her roles would be increasingly narrowing into matriarchal roles.. if she's boxed in anyway, I'm glad to see her get the roles that let her show just how nuanced of an actor she is.. and she really can pull that off.
0:02 This is what eventually earns her the Pass, IMO. Her ability to stand up for herself and dispense justice at her own discretion. Dredd knows that anyone who has the guts to stand up to him has the chops to be a judge.
Good observation but I invite you to consider this: Examine her behavior throughout the mission. Look at her reaction when she performed her first execution, the fear in the shootout, the panic during the mind merges when she picked up the prisoner's thoughts. When he said "She's a pass" did he mean that she passed her evaluation or did she pass on being a judge?
I agree more with coolprof. She was unprepared having been a mutant and not standard academy progression she possibly had been insulated from the harsh mega city. Then when she finally did what she thought she would be, dispensing justice and not perpetuating violence, then she had no trouble standing up for that idea. May have been more like carthatic release.
@@TheCoolProfessor His CO even asked him that same question: Pass or Fail, don't think too much into it. Judge Dredd is about as straightforward as you can get, and when he said "pass" He meant that while she may have failed her evaluation Anderson was indeed a Judge. Also! I know this because I have read the comics, and Judge Anderson is Judge Dredd's partner had they gone through in the making of a sequel [ which I hoped they did] Then we would have likely seen them take on the likes of the Angel family.
@@carterslade8857 - Since Judge Anderson is canon in the comics, the Pass/Fail question was answered as "Pass" meaning "not fail" rather than "pass on the opportunity" or something similar.
I invite you to consider that you have never achieved a level of education remotely close to being a 'Prof.' My reasoning... the meaning of 'PASS' is obvious, yet seemingly beyond your simple level of reasoning. Stay in your lane. @@TheCoolProfessor
"We're a kilometer above ground. Whada you figure the range is on that thing? Better get through a hundred levels of concrete. How bout 200?. Let's find out." 😁Ahhhhh Dredd. A connoisseur of science.
@@washellwash1802This is exactly what I was thinking. Apparently this trigger works by sending a detonation signal when she dies, which is the wrong way to do a kill switch. Instead, it should be set up so that the heart monitor constantly transmits a "don't detonate" signal. The bomb is armed the first time it receives the signal, and detonates when it stops receiving the signal. If she dies or is moved out of range, boom.
I've actually never liked this plot point. There's no hundred levels of concrete where he throws her, it's a giant open shaft, even a weak signal should be quite fine. I would have preferred alternatives, such as the device simply crushed at the bottom (showing the gang is not as good as they think they are, and Dredd recognizing bad tech when he sees it) or Anderson having had intel on the device when she also got the keypad code and done something about it.
Anderson is the heart of the movie but Dredd has an arc too. He would never betray the city, but he has no hope. Nothing can be changed about the city. His time with Anderson gives him hope and the value of flexibility in dispensing justice, and that judges like Anderson might actually make a difference.
It makes me so sad to know this movie didn’t do better. With the incredibly small budget they made an absolutely AMAZING movie. If you’ve never seen this movie PLEASE go watch it.
i got my blueray of it, i saw it in the cinema and got friends who didnt know the universe to watch it, the male friend loved it. Did my part, tragic it just didnt do well enough to get sequels. Most of my favourite films are flops sadly. Edge of Tomorrow, Blade runner 2049, Dredd, tragic really.
@@Vihara2 you know the main guy that played dredd I forgot his name. I wanna say Karl something? But he said if they could raise the funds for the sequel through the fans he would be down. But it never came to fruition of course. Not all my favs are flops. Some are. But I also love Dogday Afternoon. Watch that one. It’s great. John Cazale. Not as known as others. But a great actor. Amazing. Died I believe late 70’s
I wish people would STOP calling well-received movies underrated. It's so stupid. You all sound like robots, like puppets repeating the same phrase without thinking.
@@recht_voor_zijn_raap5506 No, I don't know what you mean. How would I? Why would I read "underrated" and go "ah I guess they don't mean the movie is rated too low". You're intentionally misusing words but I'm the troll? Fuck off. The fact that you get so angry over this only proves that you're the one who lacks a life. Go outside. Bye.
Considering the kind of sequels we get these days that might be seen as a blessing... Oh lord, think what a sequel would be if Disney got their filthy hands on it...
The Slo-Mo would make her heart beat faster due to euphoria, reducing the chance it stops prematurely due to hemorrhaging. Dredd felt contempt, but he was also brutally efficient.
@@carlbruschnigjr1757 Someone calculated it. Based on the 1km fall distance and factoring in terminal velocity, she fell for 18.5 seconds. Given that Slow-Mo slows the perception of time down to 1%, she experienced the fall as lasting roughly 31 minutes (1850 seconds or 30.83 minutes).
@TheEDFLegacy Her gang made the other gang smoke slomo before skinning them and tossing them. Yeah, I think it's so 10 seconds of dying feels like an hour.
For the record, it takes about 25 seconds to fall from a height of 1 km. Since Slo Mo slows your perception of time down to 1%, for Ma Ma, it felt like she was falling for about 42 minutes.
It's a really nice detail that when Ma-Ma is close to hitting the ground she brings up an arm to shield herself, rethinks and moves them back to a position where they look like wings as if she's accepted that her death will finally set her free.
This end scene is just PERFECT: we all wait for the death of the villain, the sentence is quick and brutal, the long fall of Mama promises an horrible death but we're almost immediately placed looking at the eerie and graceful fall of an Angel until the last moment when this vision ends to its violent conclusion with Mama accepting her death at last. This scene, with its weird poesy, is just BRILLIANT!!!
When this movie came out, I didn't question it or wonder why. I just bought it as soon as I could and have been playing it to friends and family ever since. It is is so great, from the cinematography to the acting to the writing. It is the perfect action film.
Dread is more or less the embodiment of justice (which of course is flawed), but my point is that male or female is irrelevant as Dread is hardly even human to begin with.@@TheInfiniteSheldon
She did the classic Dredd comic move a Flopper. In the Dredd comics MCOne citizens has clubs of people who called themselves Floppers. They would jump to their deaths from citi blocs while onlookers, club members who would rate via points each Flop made. This includes style of jump, how the arms and legs were during the full and most important head placement during impact with the surface. The media would display the jumps for all to watch. Ma Ma I’d give a solid 10 she took the fall full face first😃
I'll be honest .. when it came out I was already tired of reboots and didn't give it a chance and saw it like 10 years later and honestly one of the better movies of recent times for me.
Except that this wasn't a "reboot" or a re-anything. This is the true depiction of Judge Dredd. Not that turd with fuc*ing Stallone and fuc*ing Rob Schneider. I wish that film didn't exist.
That "fail" is nothing compared to her ability to discern perps from victims, and glean information. Also, the fact that she wasn't crooked in any sense like those other judges. She was willing to take the hit for that fail. That puts her miles ahead of those crooked judges in Dredd's book. Would've bet Anderson was surprised to get a pass from this hard-as-nails legend.
Not to mention that, per the comics, Psi-Judges (like Anderson was training to be/became) were given some leeway on being a little looser on regulations than other Judges.
Hollywood puts out so much utter drek, and yet this brilliant movie never got a sequel. Hell, we should have gotten a Dredd 2 AND a Judge Anderson film, since Olivia Thirby nailed the role.
Put it this way though, would you rather be happy with the knowledge that this won't get a sequel and we're left with this one hidden gem of a movie, or risk a modern sequel to it? You said it yourself - Hollywood puts out drek, more so now than ever, with ESG and DEI dominating every aspect of media. A sequel to this would be inevitably filled with all of that shit. Better to just keep this film safe from any of it tbh
@@mongobongo8216with the way movies are today, I’m cool with the one good Judge Dredd film. They’d definitely wokify the sequel and it would be a tragedy.
@@razmatazz9310 no... it's clearly not. It's clearly just a random pattern, and you're clearly just seeing what you want to see because you don't want to admit you're clearly wrong and you clearly read too much into things. I guarantee if the director was asked, he'd just say "wut? Wtf are you talking about?"
I did see her as somewhat sympathetic. Hers was literally a world where you try to survive the brutality of the pecking order and the only way to move up is to prove you can do effed up things without hesitation. You're a terrifying overlord or you're subject to one. Maybe if things were different she could have even been a judge. But things were not different.
Man Anderson was badass and hot af too, I love how she went from a mild mannered compassionate newbie to a hard ass killing machine even standing up for herself to dredd, shows just how much mega city one really will chew you up and spit you out if you're soft
She wasn't confident in the beginning, but Dredd instilled in her the importance of always thinking tactically on the job and being decisive. But she still let the techie go and believed she could make a difference, which she effectively did. I feel her character growth was learning to balance the grim reality of a judge's job with her better nature. Its overall a win, there is now a skilled judge with a better heart out there, but a judge nonetheless. What made it all the better was that it is a believable response to a job where you are expected to go solo against small armies.
Unfortunately still a vast change from the books, where she’s a much more personality filled, vibrant character with no particular affiliation with Dredd other than being in the same police force as him - she even calls him derisive nicknames all the time.
I think her and Hans Gruber should have seen each other on the way down, high-fived, had a chat about crime, before them both hit the pavement. One of the best antagonist death scenes ever. I LOVE the music, how it's haunting and slow.
A crazy behind the scenes thing to me is the composer’s inspiration for the slo mo music was finding a video of a Justin Bieber song slowed 800x or some other big number. Give it a look up sometime, has a very similar ethereal kinda feeling to it
Well in hindsight Dredd did a huge gamble here: he presumed transmitter is sending signal to initiate explosion. If I was Ma-Ma I would rig transmitter to send signal to _prevent_ explosion. Got out of range? Signal not received in time? KABOOM!!
Well yeah but that's just how he is. Totally uncompromising. He went up that tower to kill mawmaw and by God he's going to fucking do it come hell or high water.
Thought so as well before but then I thought if that was the case and someone turned on the Microwave between her and the receiver... Accidental KABLOOEY.
I love this rookie. She's the most awesome thing ever. In a world this brutal, she's really trying her best and I.... I appreciate that. I honestly do. Even now, a decade after I've seen this movie, her relentless humanity wins me over.
I love that little "yeah" he gives as he looks down at the ground floor of the Peachtree. Is it confidence he was right? A cheer of survival? Or just a simple acknowledgement that he served his sentence?
There are several cool things about this movie. Although Karl Urban never took off the helmet, we can see how proud Dredd is of Anderson in the beginning, at that moment he knows she passed. Also, for an impartial and incredibly stoic judge who dispenses justice only to those who deserve it - he found an unusually cruel way to kill Ma-Ma (granted there wasn't much option). Showing that even behind that helmet and always grumpy face, there is still a human who can feel anger and wants revenge for all the misery she caused
Exactly. This scene with its weird poesy was such a beautiful eerie surprise after all the intensity of the whole movie. It was the perfect ending for this movie.
@@zachporter8864 We had one, The Raid: Redemption just a year before this one, but instead of gunfire it was all close quarters combat and it was amazing! Raid grossed less than Dredd, but still got a sequel because of apreciacion. I get it, martial arts are far more difficult to film rather than firefights with CGI blood, and I remember hoping for another Dredd movie, alas it never came to be
This movie belongs to Alex Garland, the writer. A man of immense talent. The script was brilliant. No one could bring Judge Dedd to life again except him.
People say Dredd doesn't change, but that's simply not true. He changes at 0:33. It's not a major, sweeping change in the grand scheme of things, but for Dredd it might as well be an entire paradigm shift. Dredd sees people as being either perps, victims, and judges, but Anderson's convictions are enough to make him reconsider his idea of who is which category.
the idea that unlike other comic book movies this isn't world in the balances this is a day in the life of a judge. odds are this isn't the first time someone has use the bomb threat
I never watched this movie in the theater. I figured it would be a stupid remake of a stupid original (Stallone movie). I watched it recently and actually loved it. Really quite good.
The fact that she not only thought Dredd would even entertain the idea of a negotiation but also that he wouldn't find a way around it shows she definitely did not know who she was Fing with.
Dredd must've already known the hacker was a victim because he was scared out of his wits. Not exactly gangster behaviour. Testing Anderson for her response and she nailed it.
This scene is basically like a poker game.... MaMa trying to intimidate Dredd to fold by saying she has 4 Aces, but instead he goes all in, and discovers she only has an Ace high...
When Dredd tossed Ma ma out the window reminded me when Dredd threw Jr Angel off a bridge into a volcano. 'Jr angel for crimes too henious and numerous to mention I sentence you to death...'
I love how the music and sound effects have so much weight to them, really packing a punch. Also also, finally a hero who incapacitates the bad guy before beginning 'negociations' (or in this case, judgement).
I LOVED DREDD… it’s a real shame it never got a sequel. There was so much potential for a Trilogy. It’s not too late, The Boys is comin to an end and I’ve heard Karl Urban said he’d love to do it 😎
Mama looked entirely unsurprised and unfazed by where things ended up. She embarked on her path knowing damn well, one day, one way, she'd be making that dive.
Ma-Ma was crafty, but not too smart. I would have rigged up a proximity sensor to the device as well, as soon as you were a certain distance away, it still blows. I guess that wouldn't have made for a good ending, though.
0:33 I love that lil shrug of being both kinda angry like "I should chew you our for insubordination" to kinda impressed like "wow she really took charge there. let's go"
This would've made such an excellent TV series. It's hard to believe it didn't at least get a sequel. The world has so much left to explore that this movie only just touched the surface on.
