Well, here is the rest of my match-up between The Raid: Redemption and Dredd.
SETTING
Next up is a small one: the setting. The Raid takes in
present-day Jakarta. We’re pretty much stuck in a 15-story building. We don’t
see much of the outside world other than a couple of stuff at the beginning.
After Rama’s intro, we’re thrown right into the mission. We also find out that
Jakarta has a pretty bad problem with corruption. As for Dredd, it takes place
in a post-apocalyptic United States. It’s a wasteland (insert random Trump joke
here) and all that’s left is Mega-City One on the Eastern Coast. Since it’s
crap, the Judges are there to do what they can. We also got mutants and
sometimes they don’t come out pretty like Judge Anderson.
The setting that appealed to me the most was Dredd’s. Even
though we don’t get much, a lot of the city is detailed through dialogue. The
city itself looks interesting since you got all of these large towers standing
everywhere. Even Peach Trees had some interesting stuff in it. The Raid doesn’t
get this since the mission is pretty much the thing in the movie. So, this
point is going to Dredd.
The Raid – 1
Dredd – 2
ACTION
Next up is the thing we all came for: the action. So, you’re
probably thinking that I’ll say The Raid wins, right? Well… you’d be right.
More of Mad Dog doing his thing.
Don’t get me wrong because both movies have good action.
Dredd provides a lot of shooting, a little hand-to-hand combat, and a nice car
chase at the beginning. All of it is done pretty well. The machine gun incident
and Dredd’s fight with the corrupt Judges were pretty cool. The action scenes
also provide some nice slow motion when someone is high on Slo-Mo. The director
said he wanted to make the violence beautiful. I can’t exactly call it that,
but it’s cute.
Then, we get to The Raid. It runs the gamut of what can be
done in an action movie. We get gunplay at first. Then, we get some explosions.
Then, when the bullets run out, we get to the hand-to-hand combat. I think I
even saw an ax get used on someone. One wonders why a SWAT person would need
an ax, but you never know what you’ll run into. All of the action is brutal. I
wonder if any stunt dudes got hurt since some of those hits looked nuts.
The only thing about these fight scenes that doesn’t look as
good is the CGI blood. You can’t notice it at times, but there are moments where
you can really tell it’s fake. At the end of the day, the action in The Raid
really gets my attention. While Dredd’s action is pretty good and inventive,
I’ll always fall for the hand-to-hand stuff. Heck, I have a themed month where I
gush on butt-kicking, so you know what would win this round.
The Raid – 2
Dredd – 2
STORY
So it looks like the story will be the tie-breaker… crap.
This thing has been hard for me to decide on what should win and this is an
area where it’ll be really hard. I’ll also mention other things that I couldn’t
get a round out of.
The Raid has a pretty minimal plot. There’s the mission and
that’s about it. There’s little character development, but you do get more from
the characters as the story goes on. You learn about Rama’s relationship with
Andi. You find out more about Lt. Wahyu. While the movie is slim on plot, the
way things are shot and edited is pretty good. It definitely has a lot of
suspense since you really don’t know what’ll happen and who will survive.
Dredd is also slim on plot but there is a bunch more laid
out. We get quick backstories on Mega-City One, Judge Anderson, and Ma-Ma.
Anderson even gets some character development. Dredd gets little development
but he does come away with a better appreciation for Anderson at the end.
Beforehand, he thought she’d fail. I will say that there wasn’t as much
suspense for since you can surmise that Dredd and Anderson would survive Peach
Trees. Still, you did get a few twists like the corrupt Judges showing up and
causing trouble.
Are there things I don’t like? I do have a couple of qualms
but there’s really nothing bad about these films. With The Raid, there’s the
fact that there’s little story. Also, some visual stuff (the shaky-cam and CGI
blood, and some gore) wasn’t too my liking. I kind of have the same issues with
Dredd. Some things don’t look as good (some visual effects, the CGI blood, and
some over-the-top gore). I also wished there was a little more with the story
to Dredd especially since we haven’t gotten anything since 2012. At the least The
Raid got a good sequel!
So, now that I’ve flipped coins, prayed, paced, and
pondered, it’ll be Dredd that gets this win. Of course, this doesn’t mean The
Raid is inferior. It’s an awesome action film and does some cool things that
Dredd doesn’t do. Still, I do feel that Dredd did a couple of things better. It’s
really a debate that can go either way since they both have awesome positives
and few negatives.
The Raid – 2
Dredd – 3
……………………………………………..
Well, that ends my “debate” of which movie is better. In the
end, it doesn’t really matter who wins since they are good films. I went
back and forth on which movie did what better. All you need to know is that
these movies are pretty good. The Raid: Redemption is one of the best martial
arts films in this century and Dredd is cool comic book movie that sticks close
to the source material. If you haven’t seen them, do so. Just know that these
movies can get really violent, so if you’re not a fan of seeing blood and gore
(I’m not too much of one either), pass it.
Well, it’s finally time to get back
to my favorite segment for this month. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and stay
out of deadly high-rises.
No comments:
Post a Comment