Dredd - Via Vision 4K UHD/BR/3DBR Limited Edition Lenticular Hardcase

It’s wild it’s been over ten years since Dredd stormed onto theaters (and sadly did very little box office business). While the film became a hit on home video and streaming platforms, we still haven’t seen a sequel materialize despite several encouraging updates. While we wait, we can rewatch this bad-ass sci-fi action film a few more times! Based on the 2000 A.D. comic magazine character, Dredd smartly avoids any and all connections to the woeful (but stupidly entertaining) Stallone film. 

Our story within Mega-City One shows our titular Judge Dredd (Carl Urban) training the telepathic rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thrilby). One in five Judges doesn’t survive their first day on the job, so she’s thrown into the deep end on day one. It’s a hell of a first day when they answer the call of a triple homicide at the Peachtrees mega block under the control of sadistic Slo-Mo kingpin Ma-Ma (Lena Headey). When Dredd and Anderson make an arrest that threatens Ma-Ma’s operations, she puts the block on lockdown forcing the Judges into a fight for their lives. 

There’s really no way of discussing Dredd without addressing the elephant in the room that is Gareth Evans’ own Action/Thriller The Raid: Redemption. Made virtually at the same time and released barely five months apart, Dredd often sees too much flack thrown its way as some kind of clone of The Raid. There are similarities to their respective plots and setups, but they’re each their own beasts and for the better, left to stand on their own without unnecessary comparisons. 

As far as adaptations go, this is to-date, the best we’ve seen of the 2000 A.D. comic character in live-action. And it’s not just because Urban keeps his helmet on the entire time (although that does help). I admit to having a soft spot for the 1995 film, I even have a off-market 1/6th figure, but that film often missed what made the comic great and instead rested a lot of the entertainment value on Rob Schneider’s ability to crack jokes under pressure. Stallone was just, well, Stallone spending most of his time sans helmet. He wasn’t Dredd. With that in mind, I will say this film plays closer to a straight Action/Sci-fi film rather than the dark humor satire of the comic. Sure, there’s humor here and there, the human recycling zamboni cracks me up, but otherwise the film is rather dour and grisly. If you’re not into the human body being eviscerated numerous times through various ghastly means, this might not be your movie! 

While gory and grotesque, the film is actually often beautiful. To capture the effects of Slo-Mo on the user’s brain, state-of-the-art camera rigs capturing 4,000 frames a second were used and it’s quite spectacular! While I enjoy the film in 3-D, it’s visually stunning in all dimensions. The various floors of Peachtrees might not be a lot to look at, but the film has a visual flair and a gripping energy that holds your attention all the way through. 

For a couple of different opinions, check out our past coverage:

Dredd 2012 Blu-ray Review

Dredd 2017 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Limited to 2000 units, Australia’s Via Vision delivers a new three-disc Limited Edition 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Blu-ray 3-D release of Pete Travis’ 2012 Sci-Fi/Action classic Dredd. The 4K disc is essentially the same BD-66 disc release we saw here Stateside in 2017, but now the 1080p 2-D presentation gets its own BD-50 disc with the Blu-ray 3-D also getting its own BD-50 disc. All three discs are housed in a three-disc case. Included with the set is an envelope with six art cards. Everything is held together in a hard stock lenticular slipcase.

Shot digitally, Dredd has been a solid-looking feature on every format in every dimension. There’s some occasional video noise that can be a tad dodgy in places, there’s one scene before the second act kicks in and Peach Trees goes into lockdown that’s particularly unsightly but it’s an outlier instead of the norm. Most of the time, the film looks great. 

The included 4K disc is essentially identical to the HDR10 disc Lionsgate issued here. Colors are bright and bold and black levels are nice and deep with some great shadows. The Slo-Mo sequences are as beautiful (and ghastly depending on the scene) as ever. Again that video noise is a ding, but that’s been there on virtually every disc of this film I’ve owned so I’m leaning into it being a cooked-in issue. 

Now the interesting thing with this release is instead of keeping the 2D and 3D versions on the same BD-50 disc, each format now gets its own disc to rock. For the 2D I didn’t notice much of any improvement there, it’s still looks great, but the 4K with HDR certainly is the better option.  Now on the 3D Blu-ray side, I was pleased to see the extra disc space and new encode gave the image a little more bitrate room. This isn’t a dramatic shift up, but the alt-eye rate sees a steady 10-15mbps improvement. This film always looked good on my rig, but I did notice that some dimensional effects that could cause a little parallax or ghosting on the original weren’t as noticeable here. So I imagine if you have a large screen 3-D setup or projector, this film might look a might bit better with this disc. Not a night and day improvement mind you, but if you don’t have this title on disc, this is certainly something to consider.

On our respective formats, we hear the same excellent Dolby Atmos track for the 4K disc and the same excellent DTS-HD MA 7.1 audio mix for the 2D and 3D presentations. Truthfully you can’t go wrong with either track, they’re both bangers. I like the extra refinement for the Atmos a bit better, a little extra oomph in the subs is felt, but that 7.1 mix still commands your attention! Dialog is clear without issue. All of the big-bang action sequences are right on point, and that bad-ass score from Paul Leonard-Morgan still punches hard. Truthfully it is a little difficult to call one better than the other, they’re both excellent, but I do have to tip toward Atmos.

On the bonus features side, this set comes with all of the same extra features from past releases, but for the new 2D and 3D Blu-rays, comes with an excellent new audio commentary from comic and concept artist Jock and author and 2000 AD brand manager Michael Molcher for a very lively informed discussion. These two are obviously steeped in Judge Dredd lore and comic history so it’s very cool to hear them talk about some of the design decisions for the film in relation to the original comic but also the approach to satire, violence, etc. It’s a great track. The only thing is it is not on the 4K disc, only the 1080p 2D and 3D discs. 

4K UHD Disc

• Mega-City Masters: 35 Years of Judge Dredd
• Day of Chaos: The Visual Effects of Dredd
• Dredd Featurette
• Dredd’s Gear
• The 3D Dimension
• Welcome to Peechtrees
• Dredd Motion Comic Prequel
• Theatrical Trailer 

2D Blu-ray Disc

• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Jock and Michael Molcher 
• Mega-City Masters: 35 Years of Judge Dredd
• Day of Chaos: The Visual Effects of Dredd
• Dredd Featurette
• Dredd’s Gear
• The 3D Dimension
• Welcome to Peechtrees
• Dredd Motion Comic Prequel
• Theatrical Trailer 

3D Blu-ray Disc

• NEW Audio Commentary featuring Jock and Michael Molcher

2012’s Dredd is a hell of a flick. A white-knuckle action film, it brings the world of the 2000 A.D. comic character to life in a bold new way. At least it was new back in 2012! I understand box office matters, but this film sold insanely well on disc and streaming so it still baffles me we haven’t gotten a proper sequel. Sadly the longer we go along without any real traction the less hope I have of seeing Karl Urban’s frown under that helmet ever again. Australia’s Via Vision delivers a slick three-disc release of Dredd offering a 4K disc, a 2-D 1080p disc, and a 3-D Blu-ray all in limited edition lenticular packaging. But beyond cool packaging, the 3-D disc enjoys a cleaner encode on its own disc while the set offers up an excellent new audio commentary in addition to the swath of archival extras. Highly Recommended