Dredd

Judge Dredd is the law, and the number-one law of the 2000 AD comic strip from whence he sprung is that the one-man judge, jury and executioner must never remove his helmet — that way, justice has no face. This law was infamously broken in 1995 by director Danny Cannon’s spat-upon Hollywood imagining, in which the ugly mug of leading man Sylvester Stallone went fully exposed for roughly 95% of the film’s runtime. Suffice to say, such shameful disrespect for the cult icon was met with much verbalised disgruntlement by long-time fans, as was the tooth-pulling comic relief courtesy of useless sidekick Rob Schneider. The punishment? Death, by moderate box office takings.

Those same fans will be pleased with “Dredd,” in which the ultimate law enforcer’s facial features from the nostrils up are obscured by his helmet for the entire film, not counting a sly, back-of-the-head tease during the opening. Directed by Pete Travis (“Vantage Point”) and written by Alex Garland (“28 Days Later”), this relatively low-budget 3-D adaptation is a vast improvement over Cannon’s clunker: grittier, bloodier and darkly humorous, it sticks significantly closer to the beloved source material while simultaneously making itself accessible to a wide audience — at times it feels like a John Woo movie, which fits the material like a charm.

The new Dredd is played by New Zealand actor Karl Urban (Bones in J. J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” reboot), who incorporates into his performance the expected assortment of grunts, huffs, sneers and grimaces necessary in any authentic portrayal of the crime-busting anti-hero. When speaking, a precious rarity, he growls every sacred word like Clint Eastwood in “Dirty Harry” — he’s got that same grizzled attitude too. Undeniably, Urban is a better choice for the eponymous lawman than the Italian Stallion: the versatile Kiwi actor has the look, the voice and the personality, along with a noticeable lack of an ego.

The world of “Dredd” is not unlike the one we saw recently in Len Wiseman’s “Total Recall” remake, which was perhaps partly inspired by the “Judge Dredd” comics. It is the near future, and much of our planet is an uninhabitable, irradiated, post-apocalyptic wasteland known as the Cursed Earth. The vast metropolis Mega-City One is grossly overpopulated, filled to the brim with 800 million citizens. Crime is rampant, with roughly 17,000 offences reported on a good day. They are dealt with by the Judges, hard-nosed cops from a fascistic organisation who flaunt a license to execute criminals on the spot.

Further exploration of this dystopian cityscape — shot in the gorgeous Johannesburg — would have been appreciated, but alas, the majority of the action is confined to a single building, like in “Die Hard.” This building is a dilapidated, 200-storey high-rise ghetto known as Peach Trees. Most of the tenants living in this towering slum operate under the thumb of Ma-Ma (Lena Headey, “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”), a former prostitute turned sadistic drug kingpin. When three of Ma-Ma’s rivals are skinned and hurled off the top floor as a warning to others of their ilk, the fearsome Judge Dredd is called upon to check out the situation.

Dredd hesitantly brings along a rookie: the young and naive Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby, the best friend in “Juno”), who must prove her worth to her scowling supervisor if she is to become a full-time Judge. Anderson is a mutant, gifted with psychic abilities that allow her to read minds, predict people’s actions and tamper with their heads. In one scene, she is challenged by a captive who claims the visions he can think up and expose her to will be far greater in nastiness than anything she could possibly concoct for him. Anderson begs to differ, pumping his mind full of images of violence so frightening and disturbing he whimpers in terror until finally he wees himself. Yikes.

Dredd and Anderson find themselves trapped inside Peach Trees when Ma-Ma places the entire building on lockdown. Through the intercom system, she alerts the residents to the unwanted presence of two Judges. She demands their death, and warns that anyone caught aiding them in any way will be swiftly dealt with. Already we are reminded of the May-released Indonesian martial arts masterpiece “The Raid,” which, by pure coincidence, has damn near the exact same plot as “Dredd.” This, it seems, is merely a case of unfortunate timing, as “Dredd” finished filming months before Gareth Evans’ film went into production.

Like the SWAT team of “The Raid,” Dredd and Anderson are continually attacked by an onslaught of expendable goons as they gradually work their way up the building, floor by floor, towards — to borrow a gaming term — the final boss. But there is a key difference between the two big-screen all-action extravaganzas: while “The Raid” was all about showcasing the breathtaking physical aptitudes of its leading men, “Dredd” is more of a showcase for deafening decibel levels and its full-blown arsenal of futuristic weaponry. This is none more so the case than in a scene in which Dredd frantically outruns the impact of a machine gun that transforms an entire floor into a cloud of dust and a pile of debris.

Travis giddily revels in blood-splattered violence as Dredd blasts gaping bullet holes through deadbeats’ shrieking faces and beating hearts with his trusty Lawgiver pistol. Sometimes we view this from the vantage point of the drug-addled baddies, who are high on Ma-Ma’s drug Slo-Mo. As its name suggests, Slo-Mo allows its users to experience time at 1% of its normal speed. This is a nifty twist on the bullet-time style made famous by “The Matrix,” as we are pulled face-first into a technicolour dreamworld where time doesn’t stand still so much as cruise by at a snail’s pace. Its vibrancy is beautiful and intoxicating, like when Dorothy first enters the land of Oz, but with a bit more brain matter whizzing through the air.

Dredd and Anderson make for a resourceful crime-fighting team, in spite of and because of their mismatched personalities; that’s the rule of the buddy cop movie. Both are commendably determined in their line of work, but in different ways: Anderson optimistically believes she can make a difference to Mega-City One, while the pessimistic Dredd believes it is beyond saving, stubbornly enforcing the law purely because it is his duty. In an early scene, Anderson firmly states that with enough work a block like Peach Trees can be changed for the better. Dredd snarls: “Admirable.”

It is to Urban’s credit that his Dredd remains an engaging protagonist for the entirety the film. Urban seamlessly slips in tiny flickers of humanity in amongst all his frowning and barking without any of it feeling like a compromise. This might manifest itself in the form of outrage over the deaths of innocent civilians, which causes him to angrily beat a handcuffed captive, or a slight, but notable look of panic when Anderson is captured. Subtleties like these — and they are subtle — are what keep the famed Judge from being reduced to a dull, one-note character; he may not be a fully fleshed out individual, but he’s not a robot either. And remember, Urban does all this through just a mouth, a pair of nostrils and a stubbled chin.

There are many things to like about “Dredd:” its pulpy aesthetic, bombastic action, ultra-violent carnage and blood-pumping electric-rock soundtrack top the list, as do the assured performances of Urban and Thirlby. But what’s best about it is that it is lean, stripped down, uncompromising and unflinching — after 35 years in print, “Judge Dredd” is finally done justice on the silver screen. I look forward to the sequel, in which we will hopefully get to see more of Mega-City One and its surroundings. That Cursed Earth needs some exploring.

8/10