3. Slo-Mo
To a low budget filmmaker theres nothing more badass than slow motion. But it sure is pesky having to justify putting it in a film. Dredd avoids this annoyance by having slow motion a major plot point. The drug that villain MaMa is peddling is called, with the most imaginative name since Unobtanium, slo-mo and makes everything appear, well, slower. Slo-Mo is a terribly unimaginative idea shoehorned in as a key plot device. Was there nothing in Dredds twenty year history that could have been used over a gimmick that got tired by the second Matrix film? Slow motion is an incredibly overused device that purports to make things look cooler, but is used with such frequency that it is more refreshing and cool to have a film without it. If you need to slow the action down to make it comprehensible, maybe you shouldn't be directing action at all? Like 3D, it is admittedly quite cool the first time you see the effect. As well as slowing things down, it creates a sort of hyper enhanced colour pallet, making everything look bright, vibrant and, best of all, interesting. Its a shame the rest of the film is stuck with drab and dirty greys. We get at least three uses before the plot proper kicks off, followed by a couple in early action sequences (by which point its getting a bit tired). Then, about halfway through the drug is mostly forgotten. Its almost as if it was put in there just to create the sense of style and not for the benefit of the plot at all!