<Retro> Dredd [2012]

While artistically adept in a way that few other comic-films can even begin to compare, Dredd ultimately loses itself in genre tropes, narrative contrivances, and plot idiocies that make it difficult to become invested in the otherwise clear and intentional drive of the film. While still very fun, Dredd doesn't leave you much to remember once the credits roll. Despite this, I still believe it to be an important film to the genre and, a decade since release, the influences of Dredd can be felt with the release of John Wick two years later, among others.

With these films, the action genre has taken a turn from the corn and cheese of decades earlier, and truly begun to establish itself as a worthwhile subset of film, rather than just popcorn-munching-fun.

It's too bad we'll never get the sequels this should have spawned to see what these could have turned out to be amid our current reality of shiny and banal comic inanity.