Dredd

This movie is not going to win Oscars but it is a perfectly excellent mindless action movie that is based on the immensely popular Judge Dredd comic strip from the 2000 AD British anthology comic series. Unlike the previous 1995 film starring Sylvester Stallone, Dredd is a much more faithful adaptation to the series although they did away with some trivial cosmetics to the uniforms to make it more workable and so they didn’t stab themselves while walking.

Taking place in a post-apocalyptic future, the remnants of humanity scramble to survive in Mega-City One where civilization is breaking down. The only force that is barely keeping things together is a new breed of law officer which act as police, judge, jury, and executioners all in one.

The storyline is fairly simple and straightforward as a cop story; the young rookie Judge is on the verge of failing her training and they decide to throw her in the ‘deep end’ by assigning her to serve a day alongside a veteran Judge known as Dredd for assessment. A routine call however turns deadly as the pair stumble onto the base of operations for the newest and most ruthless drug syndicates in Mega-City One and they have a witness whose testimony would destroy them. To save themselves, the syndicate takes control of the mega-apartment building and locks it down, trapping the Judges and the witness inside and they find themselves fighting a siege war against an entire army of thugs and criminal scum to save themselves and incidentally the witness as well.

It’s over the top with violence, loads of gunfire even gigantic VULCAN gatling guns, and slow-motion special effects thanks to a special drug ‘Slo-Mo’ which accelerates a person’s perceptions and also made for some great and hideously realistic scenes where we get to see how the human body reacts to impacts or bullets or other such trauma. I also found the entire set and environment to be highly detailed and well done. The entire city looks like a decrepit and decaying monolithic concrete monstrosity. The megastructure of Peach Trees was similar; a gritty, dirty rotting slum.

Even though this movie’s titular character is Dredd, in actuality this movie is all about Olivia Thirlby (Anderson) who was superb as the vulnerable yet tough psychic Judge. She was great at being the foil to Karl Urban (Judge Dredd) in the film. I was deeply surprised to discover that Urban acted in the film by the way. I suppose it was the rather concealing helmet that he constantly wore but he affected this raspy voice that sounded nothing like I remember from his last performance as Dr. McCoy from Star Trek. He was solid, uncompromising, dour, and rather one-dimensional; but his character was intended to be like that and every so often, he projected such controlled rage in his voice that he was rather scary and intimidating. He definitely did justice to his character. Lena Headey (Ma-Ma) was rather convincing in her role as a brutal and merciless crime boss and overall, the rest of the cast were believable in their limited roles as well.

I found the entire movie to be neat throwback to Sergio Leone’s old fashioned Westerns with ‘The Man With No Name’ could be with Dredd as ‘The Man Who Never Takes Off His Helmet’. They could have screwed things up by delving too much into the history of Mega-City One, having too much sci-fi cluttering the screen, or bringing in one of Dredd’s greater villains but instead, they decided to make it a great introductory story to Dredd and his world and you want to give thanks that you’re not living in it. I could see this movie spawning a few sequels or even a television series, it’s simply that good. It’s easy to see why Judge Dredd is such an enduring character that has survived all these decades. Clint Eastwood has a worthy successor for the 21st Century. Watch it and Judge for yourself.

RATING: 3 and 1/2 STARS.