Dredd 2: 10 Reasons Why It Needs To Happen

9. So People Stop Comparing The First One To The Raid

In the same year that Dredd came out, of course, we did get another action film which was an intense thrill-power overload with guns and explosions, one-liners and over-the-top bad guys. It was called The Raid (add a "Redemption" to the title if you're in the US) and it was, admittedly, pretty amazing itself. It also, admittedly, had a similar premise to Dredd: in Dredd, two officers of the law are trapped inside an apartment complex controlled by a murderous gang, and have to fight their way out. In The Raid, a team of police officers are slowly whittled down to a few after being trapped inside an apartment complex controlled by a murderous gang, and have to fight their way out. So you can see why a lot of people were comparing to the two films on a basic level, albeit often unfavourably for Dredd. A lot of people saw it as nothing but a cheap rip-off of The Raid's premise which, well one: that's stupid, and two: Dredd was in production before The Raid, and three: they're really not that similar. The Raid is an Indonesian martial arts thriller, whereas Dredd is more of a straight-up gun-shooty affair. They're also not the first films to involve people facing impossible odds in a tower block - you only need to go back to Attack the Block or superior French zombie flick The Horde for that - or even the first movie to place people under siege in a single location - look at Assault on Precinct 13, Rio Bravo or, er, Under Siege. A second Dredd movie could help the first move even further from The Raid's shadow. Unless it's about Dredd going undercover to infiltrate a gang in the iso-cubes, in which case...fair cop.
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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/