America is an irradiated wasteland. Within it lies a city. Outside the boundary walls, a desert: The Cursed Earth. Inside the walls: the cursed city, stretching from Boston to Washington, DC. An unbroken concrete landscape. 800 million people living in the ruin of the old world and the mega-structures of the new one. Mega-blocks, mega-highways, Mega City One. Convulsing, choking, breaking under its own weight. Citizens in fear of the street, the gun, the gang. Only one thing fighting for order in the chaos: The men and women of the Hall of Justice. Juries… Executioners… Judges.
A Judge named Dredd answers a call to investigate a triple homicide – and things get a little out of hand. Tagging along on this seemingly routine call is rookie Cassandra Anderson, whom Dredd has been tasked to evaluate. The investigation leads them on a collision course with prostitute-turned-crime-lord Madeline “Ma-Ma” Madrigal, who puts her city block into lockdown to protect her enterprise, and prevent herself from being “judged”. Trapped in a 200-story tall building as large as a town, with anyone capable of lifting a gun on the lookout for them, the Judges must find a way out. If that means going right to the top of the tower and confronting Ma-Ma, then so be it.
The Judges were pretty good – Karl Urban played Dredd, cool and calm, even under the extreme pressure of the scenario (except when he had three gatling guns pointed at him – but a bit of stress at that point is to be expected, no?). I found it pretty funny that none of the rank and file bad guys were really much of a threat to Dredd, and he spent most of the movie looking pretty non-plussed by it all. Usually, that kind of characterisation would be dull or unrealistic – but this is Judge Dredd we’re talking about here. Olivia Thirlby played a fragile Judge Anderson – to start with, at least. I kind of got the feeling that this was less of a special Judge Dredd event, rather, it was Andersons coming-of-age tale. Dredd’s deadpan response when debriefing his superior at the end of the film suggests he deals with this kind of shit on a daily basis. Lena Headey was brilliant as Ma-Ma. I know her as Sarah Connor from The Sarah Connor Chronicles where she plays a “good” bad-ass. Playing an “evil” bad-ass isn’t too much of a stretch.
I couldn’t tell you how good the 3D effects were, I’ve not moved on to the Blu-Rays just yet, but all the scenes shot in slow-motion were incredibly pretty. Slowing anything down makes it look ethereal and beautiful – even someone falling 200 stories to their death. I also couldn’t tell you how faithful it was to the comic – I’ve not read 2000AD in years, but there were no comic relief characters, no camp moments, no cheesy dialogue – just gritty, spectacular violence. Lots of explosions, lots of fighting, lots of gunfights, and quite a bit of it in glorious slow-motion.
Summed up in one word? Amazing.
