Have action movies seen their day in the Cinema?

One of last year's saddest movie stories was how much of a flop Dredd 3D was at the box office. I wasn't personally its biggest fan but I could appreciate what they were doing and would have liked to see it developed more in a sequel. But making nowhere near its meager $50m budget pretty much sealed its fate as a stand alone film. There seems to be a similar feeling about The Last Stand this year, only recently released in the UK but already consigned to its flop status in the US, with Stallone's Bullet to the Head not looking particularly healthy either.

However, once Dredd was released on DVD and Blu-Ray it has done incredibly well, despite criticism of the 2D Blu-Ray's picture quality. It was top of the Amazon charts for a fair while and has become the biggest seller so far this year. Clearly there were people out there who want to watch it and I've heard from many others who would have picked up a copy straight after seeing it in the cinema if it was available. Others have taken a chance on it via LoveFilm and the like, pleasantly surprised after not being aware that it was unconnected to the 90's Stallone version.

The Last Stand was covered in the recent episode of Half in the Bag and while I was slightly surprised by Mike and Jay's negative reaction compared to some other critics, they also made some good points. In particular Jay's disappointment at watching it in the cinema as opposed to at home with a bunch of buddies, who could laugh and poke fun at it more freely. There are still occasions where being in a theatre full of strangers cheering or laughing at the same thing can be a great experience but that more mocking tone of criticism is something best left among friends as you never know who might be offended by it. It would also be especially awkward in a near empty cinema that I would expect for these films.

I look back at the golden age of action movies in the 80's and question if the people watching in cinemas then would still go out to see films now. Looking at people of my generation, we were likely never part of the cinema audience anyway, as I'm sure many teenagers discovered classics like Commando on VHS, with friends whose parents would look the other way. If you're grown up thinking of action films as a great group experience, it becomes more difficult to organise a group trip to the cinema as friends get older and start their own families. The Expendables films have somehow managed to tap into this nostalgia factor and convince enough people to put up with exorbitant prices and stale popcorn to get that 'cinema experience'.

So would most action films be better out of the cinema - or at least with DVD and digital distribution options available simultaneously? It's not just action movies that people want to have available at home immediately but it does seem like a particularly good fit in this case. Sadly there are still many business hurdles to work out for this to come to pass and I imagine film producers would see it as lost revenue to only make one DVD sale compared to a ticket for each viewer. This might be true in some cases but I'm sure there are plenty of examples of watching with friends and word of mouth leading to people buying their own copies.

This is all hard to prove though and there could still be future films that do incredibly well in the cinema. The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head may have actually deserved to fail from a quality perspective, though Dredd still feels like it didn't deserve its reception at all. All I can say for sure is that I would personally much rather be able to watch films at home more easily and I wish there was less of a stigma to a title going 'straight to video' - whatever the video format may be.

Dredd (2012)

This review was also posted on ArtFist.org

When I found this film a little disappointing, I felt very alone in my opinion - especially given how much I wanted to love it beforehand. All around me critics and fans were praising it almost universally, with only a few negative knee-jerk reaction reviews that didn't feel like they matched my opinion either. In writing a review of it, I felt like I owed it to the film to really think about why it didn't work for me and to be clear that I didn't think it was a bad film either.

My first thought was to look at the impact of its initial trailer, which created a fantastic atmosphere, perfectly mixing in Skream's remix of Bulletproof. It also encapsulated the whole plot pretty well and perhaps left you with the feeling that there would be few surprises. I'd also watched pretty much every preview clip available, including some of the gory slo-mo scenes, which may have ended up having less impact. One thing that actually seemed to be missing in the cinema was how the blood effects were so over the top that they managed to extend right out of the film frame (highlighted in this preview clip). The final film is also perhaps different in tone than the trailer suggests, with some of the rather clichéd exchanges highlighted in the trailer coming off much better in the final cut. There was also one reasonably big surprise remaining, which I was glad hadn't been spoiled by anything.

Another consideration is just how much I was anticipating the film. For a long time it held a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, only toppled from this position when the Daily Mail decided to wade into the argument. All this lead me to expect something truly spectacular, when its modest budget should perhaps have suggested that it would be more grounded. That's not to say that its low budget affects its execution much, more perhaps the scope of it seeming quite limited. It was also very slow and methodical in places, being less about non-stop action and imaginative set pieces and more showing the Judges taking the best tactical approach possible to deal with threats. I think that this was a totally valid choice and highlights how rigidly they would have been trained but I could certainly see a lot of people drawn in by its rave reviews being disappointed by this approach.

I have to mention the 3D as well and I wasn't impressed that I had no choice but to see it in this format. While some of the long shots gave a great sense of scale and the slow motion looked amazing, the rest seemed like a mess to me. I doubt it was the film at fault but there was lots of ghosting, parts that looked the wrong depth, reflections on my lenses and of course the discomfort of the cheap plastic glasses gradually pressing into my nose. For this film in particular I would have loved for it to have been able to use 3D only in those big scenes where it worked, with the more fast paced scenes being 2D. I've heard of a few people refusing to watch it in the cinema at all though, which seems a bit extreme and I'm glad I put up with the mild discomfort to show my support for it.

I'll be honest and say that my own experience of the comic book character is pretty limited, which is something that I'd like to rectify but is another possible reason why I felt underwhelmed by it. Other than reading the odd issue in the distant past and hours lost browsing wikipedia articles, the only book I own is a collection of stories leading up to Necropolis, which I mainly bought in the mistaken assumption that it would feature Judge Death. It's actually been interesting to go back and read it again, as I found some similarities between it and the film. A lot of it focuses on Dredd evaluating a different rookie Judge and even features a fight scene while the rookie is in handcuffs. It also mirrors the ending of the film, with Dredd failing his rookie in the book without any concrete reasoning, while Anderson gets a pass in this film despite actions that could have been an instant failure.

I think overall I was just expecting a little more from it on many levels. It's a rather shallow film in terms of any political subtext to it, when I was perhaps expecting something more satirical along the lines of Robocop or Starship Troopers. Its complete and utter committal to an unquestioning portrayal of the Judges is one of its strengths but it also feels like it has little to say on the issue and has become a sticking point for those writing negative reviews. The irony of a right wing paper complaining about 'a fascist dream of a policeman' was certainly not lost on me, seemingly showing a staggering lack of self-awareness. I definitely think that it could have stood to say a little more, though having Dredd be much more human at this early stage may have made the whole thing fall down. Giving only the merest crack in his armour to show he's still a human being is just enough to suggest it could be explored more in future movies.

It was also surprised by how deranged Lena Headey's gang leader Ma-Ma appeared on film, which was strange when there is a prequel comic that shows her in a... well not exactly a more positive light but you certainly get a better idea of how she reached this point. But the film is what matters and I think it missed an opportunity in portraying her as an insane sadist, which just made her seem unrealistic. I would have liked to have seen her as more of a desperate figure, going to any lengths to protect the empire she'd scraped together - at least giving some impression of why she'd become so extreme. It could have also focussed more on the cyclical nature of violence and how the Judges can never bring an end to it. The harshness of the Judge system should sometimes seem unfair and not just make the audience feel it was justified in removing a truly evil villain. I would say that on the whole the comics were aiming to expose just how flawed the kind of justice some people want is. The ending might have felt more meaningful when Anderson lets one of the gang go because she feels he is a victim, if we had also seen Ma-Ma as just another victim in a sense.

Despite all of this, I still think it's a great accomplishment and it feels like the best version of Dredd we are ever likely to see on screen. Details like the body armour feel totally right in the final product, despite plenty of people, myself included thinking that the proportions looked a little off to begin with. The distinctive design is very pragmatic and I feel like that's a good way of describing the film as a whole, which perhaps doesn't quite feel like it could encompass some of the weirdness found in the comics. Even though the writer of the film has talked about potential sequels eventually leading to aspects like the Dark Judges, I'm not sure I could see the two fitting together. It's this that makes it difficult to decide whether this is best served remaining as a standalone film or if it can still be a jumping off point for more films. There's certainly a lot more to draw from without bringing in more fantastical elements, which has me interested in reading some more early Judge Dredd stories to get a feel for what might inspire them. Hopefully I can watch it again at some point in the future, with less pressure or expectations on it and appreciate it for the bold, strong film it is.