Dredd Sniper

Hello and welcome to a new week, complete with a brand new installment of Eccentric Spheres.

Today I'm in the mood for reviews, so to start off, I'll complete my review on Sniper Elite 3.

Having now completed the game, I'm still very satisfied. There's nothing in the last two missions that would make me change anything I said two weeks ago.

The last levels are just as good as the six previous, but I want to bring up three things that did bother me a bit. First off, in one level you get tons of re-spawns even if you carefully clear out the entire area like I did. It would have been nice if they arrived as reinforcements instead of just appearing out of thin air.

Secondly, there is a pretty bad cliché towards the end, not game breaking in any way, but totally cringe worthy.

And finally I witnessed enemy soldiers blissfully patrolling an area that was under heavy machine gun fire. They just calmly walked around while being shot to pieces. Saved me some ammo I guess.

These three tiny things are my only real complaints in Sniper Elite 3, so over all, I'm both pleased and impressed. So pleased I've already started a new run through on higher difficulty.

Next up, we're go from games to film. The other day I watched Dredd (2012) with Karl Urban in the title role.

Now I've never been a huge Judge Dredd fan, but I've read some of the comics and liked them well enough. Back in the nineties I watched Sylvester Stallone take on the same role in Judge Dredd (1995), and although I liked the beginning of that movie, they quickly wrecked the whole thing by removing Dredd's helmet. It's a thing in the comics that you never see Dredd without his helmet. So I was apprehensive about watching the new attempt. In fact, I wouldn't have bothered, except I saw a glowing review of it, and decided it sounded good enough. And you know what? It's actually pretty awesome.

Sure it's lacking some of the comic book flair the 95 film had, and Karl Urban’s chin is sub par compared to Stallone’s, but in every other way, Dredd (2012) was an enormous improvement.

It looks great, the actors are very good and the plot feels like an actual Judge Dredd story, compared to the 95 version that went completely off the rails. The pacing felt excellent, and at no time did it get boring. Seeing Judge Dredd mentor a young inexperienced Judge Anderson was a real treat. Anderson, while on the subject, was particularly well written. Going from a determined but rattled rookie to someone who just wants to get the job done right, made for a good female protagonist. In essence, her gender was almost irrelevant for the story. It could have worked just as well with a man, but Anderson is female and that's that. There were no romantic sub-plots, no “I can't because I'm a girl” moments, nothing like that.

In fact, even if you're not a Dredd fan, but you like action/ sci-fi, this is probably a good movie for you.

Well there you have it. So until I see you again, have a great week!