Watched DREDD tonight, not 3D, but was pretty average, the usual American Garbage, masses of guns, shooting and zero plot!
Most people would agree with you, but i always found it ridiculous (meaning, actually false) when people criticize good action movies for not having a plot. To come up with good action scenes, the events have to flow together in a logical sequence, or it gets boring. In some shitty action movie, the camera jumps around from shot to shot just showing disconnected scenes of mayhem. On the other hand, a movie like DREDD shows skirmishes unfolding over the course of many shots, each of which follows and builds on the last.
An example would be the part where they trap Dredd and set up the heavy artillery, blasting the whole floor to hell... there are a lot of parts to this scene, from the initial "oh shit" moment where he realizes they've trapped him, to the unveiling/setup of the guns, to the tension-building scenes where everything is getting ripped apart, and then finally the "a-ha" where he realizes he has to breach the side of the building. Then, you think they've finally escaped, but in a cruel twist they can't get down, and have to go back in, and so this conflict resolves and segues nicely into the next chapter of the film.
This is all part of the plot, and I think a sequence like this is actually a lot more "plot driven" than most...
finally, this wasn't an american film -- it's british
