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Dredd

Starring: Karl Urban,Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, One Bad Ass Gun

Directed by: Pete Travis

Best Moment: 'Incendiary'

Worst Moment: Literally any time Ma-Ma tries to be evil.

Now how can anything be as good as that? But despite Mr Stallone's most stroke-enduing delivery, the new ‘Dredd’ is a superior class of Lawbringer, and a fantastic start to this apparently out of nowhere season of autumn blockbusters. While we’re going to be seeing lots of policeman and fallen societies over the next few weeks, I’ll doubt many will be as enjoyably gory  as Mega City One's totalitarian but strangely sunlit view of the future (or, if the ‘2000AD’ title of his comic is anything to go by, the recent past.

The film’s premise is as simple as the leads approach to justice. Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) investigates a grisly murder in a huge ‘mega-bloc’ (a 200 storey skyscraper filled with 17,000 people). Drug Lord Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) is brewing up a new drug ‘Slow-Mo’ (which does what it says on the tin), and traps Dredd inside, along with new psychic recruit Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby). It’s up to Dredd to battle his way to the top of the building, and judge the crimes of every gang member.

This is done in the most spectacular series of gun battles, where walkways and apartments are demolished thanks to the Judge's brutal methods of justice. His weapon, the ‘Lawgiver’ has the handy ability to fire any type of round Dredd needs, from rocket launchers to fireballs. The gruesome kills he wracks up, combined with the heavy use of slow-motion give an almost cerebral feel to the films action sequence. It also makes for some of the best use of 3D in ages; there have been a lot of complaints of the limited 2D showing of the movie, but for once it’s worth the extra £3.

The shooty action will take your mind of some of the weaker moments; this is obviously a cheap movie, and the initial opening in what’s clearly Cape Town doesn’t put you in the mood for future thrills as much as the earlier Stallone adaption did (indeed, the cityscape was one of the few things it the original got right). Karl Urban is very solid, given that he doesn’t have much chance to really act, but his voice is spot on, and is in every way a complete badass. Olivia Thirlby’s Anderson is a fine attempt, given that she has to carry most of the films characterisation, and suitably naive but her performance is a little soft – for me she didn’t successfully reach the level in butt-kickery she ought had to. 

Sadly, I was thoroughly let down by Lena Headey’s Ma-Ma. I’m not a big fan of her performance as Cersei on ‘Game of Thrones’ and this did nothing to rectify that. She was either whiny or simply couldn’t be bothered; we’re frequently told how ruthless and evil she is, but she can’t even deliver a good evil speech, let alone look scary holding a knife. Dredd needed a fiercer villain to face off, and Headly’s lackluster performance certainly earned her a death sentence.

But that might be a little harsh. Ultimately, ‘Dredd’ is really just a balls-out shoot-em-up movie, splendidly filmed and deliciously brutal, and the lack of acting power doesn’t detract from that in the slightest. This is an immensely entertaining popcorn muncher, and I hope Dredd will be back soon to show other comic-book stars how crime fighting is done.

8 Thargs out of Ten.