Dredd

Dredd staring Karl Urban and Lena Headey. 

There is absolutely no way this Dredd can be confused with the Stallone Judge Dredd. If these two Judge Dredd’s met in a bar this Dredd wouldn’t even bother kicking the butt of Stallone’s Dredd. It would just kill Stallone’s Dredd as he walked into the bar that is how vastly different these two Dredd’s are. And this Dredd is highly superior to Stallone’s Dredd by leaps, bounds and every way possible. It’s dark, it’s brutal, it’s over-the-top insane on violence, and it’s nihilistic to the core, which is exactly like the British comic book it’s adapted from. 

This adaption of Judge Dredd puts every emphasis back on the Judge part in this futuristic society as  being the judge, jury, and executioner in every way possible. If any criticism can be pointed at this movie I would put it on the world building as it needed to explore a society where this kind of violent crime and criminals have arisen to warrant this kind of police state. With there being that many criminals and crimes committed in this society and so few Judges I just wondered how the Judicial system could survive. A little more exploration of this I think would have made this movie even better as it could easily have acted as a commentary on society, crime, criminals, and law enforcement. Robocop did a much better job of mixing in commentary amongst the insane violence.  Robocop also managed to inject a lot of humor to make things a little more real. Dredd is all business, but other than that I thought this was a brutal action movie.  Just don’t go in thinking it’s going to be Die Hard. It’s comparison to Robocop is accurate because Karl Urban acted like Robocop throughout the movie as he didn’t even take his helmet off and was all business, just like Robocop was throughout his movie. And he needed to be because dealing the scumbags and criminals he was dealing with: you shoot to kill you don’t shoot to maim. He didn’t play around in this movie. If the criminal had a gun pointed at him chances are that criminal was going to die, there was no and if’s or but’s about it, which is exactly how a cop needs to be in a situation like that.