DREDD: UNDERBELLY
Billed as a sequel to the 2012 flick, Dredd, it comes off as not really a sequel but kinda. Kinda sorta. It’s not perfect. It doesn’t feature the same grunt and grimace of Karl Urban. It doesn’t have the flashy direction or the amazing kinetic energy of the newest flick, but what it does have is Dredd.
There’s just not nearly enough of him.
That’s the biggest takeaway from this book. It’s about 30-some odd pages of story that feels too quick to jump to its conclusion and doesn’t have nearly the same payoff as the flick or the same gusto. It does have a new drug sweeping Mega City One, called Psych this time, and it does have a female antagonist and it does feature Dredd and Anderson.
But it doesn’t have the gore. It doesn’t have the gunplay. It doesn’t have the excitement of that film.
That’s the biggest problem with Arthur Wyatt (FutureQuake) and Henry Flint‘s comic. Had it been billed as a one-shot set in the film universe, we’d be telling a different story (especially if that meant the possibility of more stories with the same ideas presented in the film).
But, this was billed as a sequel to the film. And it is most certainly not. Lots of people will love this. Lots of people will like this. Some will hate it. I, simply, like it.
I just wish there was more to it.
