Screenwriter's Series: Alex Garland

The Screenwriters Series will examine the filmography of a screenwriter with the hope of finding out what helped them break into the industry or continue to find success. "Story By" credits will not be used: only films with official WGA Screenplay credit per IMDb will be used. This includes screenplays with multiple writers that may or may not have collaborated.

THIS MONTH'S SCREENWRITER: Alex Garland

MOVIE: Dredd (2012)

Starring:

Karl Urban as Judge Dredd

Olivia Thirlby as Anderson

Lena Headey as Ma-Ma

Wood Harris as Kay

Domhnall Gleeson as Clan Techie

Director: Pete Travis

Budget: $50 Million

Box Office:

Opened: $6.2M

Final: $13.4M

Plot:

Judge Dredd rules the streets of Mega City One with an iron fist. When he is tasked with assessing rookie judge Anderson, they respond to a multiple homicide at the Peach Trees complex. As they are soon to discover, Peach Trees is ruled by the drug lord Ma-Ma who is peddling a new drug called Slo-Mo. After she puts the building on lockdown, making escape impossible, Dredd and Anderson must fight their way through Ma-Ma's Clan and ensure that Slo-Mo stays off the streets.

The Script:

One noticeable change is the age of Ma-Ma. In the script she is described as a 50-60 year old woman and clearly her movie incarnation played by Lena Headey is not and had character traits that were changed at the actress’ insistence.

While the script is about 20 pages longer than the run time of the film (once again equating 1 page per minute of screen time), this can be attributed to Garland's level of description. He turns Peach Trees into a living breathing building as well as describes the effects of Slo-Mo in disturbingly beautiful and visual detail. There are also some scenes that were trimmed for pacing (especially once the dirty Judges appear later in the film), which is interesting because the script is relentlessly paced.

My Review:

With this being a straight up action film, this feels very far removed from his previous scripts. While those films mostly featured occasional bursts of bloody violence, they were more contemplative films about the dark depths of humanity. There are elements of his past style with Mega City One feeling like a likely future for our current humanity.

Karl Urban is fantastic as the titular Judge Dredd. Unlike the Stallone version, this Dredd sticks close to the comic character and keeps his helmet on the entire movie. Also fantastic is Olivia Thirlby as rookie Judge Anderson. With little onscreen backstory she is able to keep her badass character, who is peppered with a cool psychic ability, likable through the carnage. She also acts as the audience surrogate, questioning some of the more brutal aspects that come with being a Judge.

And what carnage it is. It's interesting; the movie actually tones down some of the violence from the script while also maintaining some high octane action sequences. Also, the sequences featuring the Slo-Mo drug are as hypnotic as they are terrifying.

While it didn't light the box office on fire, this was a decent remake with some uncompromising action. Considering some of the rocky production on this (see below), it's amazing this turned out as good as it did.

Critical reception:

79% on Rotten Tomatoes

Trivia:

There is debate about who actually directed the film. In a 2018 interview, star Karl Urban said that it was Alex Garland and not credited director Pete Travis. This would make it Garland's directorial debut. However, this clashes with a report from the LA Times in 2011 that claimed the studio and the director Travis were having creative differences. They then handed the editing process to Garland, whose efforts were enough to warrant him a co-director credit despite having no prior experience. Later, Garland and Travis issued a joint statement calling their partnership on the film a "unorthodox collaboration" that had been agreed upon before filming and that Garland was not seeking co-director credit.

Up Next: Ex Machina (2014)