A Bland, Bloody and Blighted Affair

Dredd

*½ out of ****

Directed by: Pete Travis

Starring: Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, Wood Harris and Domhnall Gleeson

Running time: 98 minutes

Judge Dredd is a beloved Dirty Harry-esque law enforcement figure that is popular in British comic book circles. In the latest film adaptation, he is played by Karl Urban, an impressive character actor who is reduced to grimacing, scowling and showing off a handsome cleft chin. See, Dredd never removes his striking red and black helmet.

A by-the-book officer from the Hall of Justice, Dredd patrols the smoggy sprawl of Mega City One, a metropolis of concrete buildings and never-ending highways. The Hall of Justice only has the work force to solve 6 per cent of total crimes.

Beyond serving as a judge, Dredd is also the jury and the executioner, which gives him the right to kill anyone he suspects of wrongdoing. Crime in Mega City One has surged due to Slo-Mo, a narcotic that shows things happening at 1 per cent its normal rate once consumed. 

Slo-Mo is infesting its way through the city's high-rise residential slums (which are just really dirty condominiums). The drug is less a MacGuffin than an excuse for director Pete Travis to indulge in showing hyper-stylized deaths in luscious slow motion.

Our title character is matched up with recruiting a potential judge, Cassandra (Olivia Thirlby), who has potent psychic abilities. She has a scarred past, but her unique powers are resourceful to the Hall. It is Dredd’s job to break her in and to see if her mind is equipped enough to defy the city’s mettle.

The duo head to a slum tower where drug-dealer Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), having infiltrated all 200 floors of the high-rise, has tossed three men from the highest storey, killing them. Upon hearing word of the judges in her building, she locks it down underneath a protective shield and orders that all of the residents take up arms against Dredd and Cassandra.

Dredd's plot, a smackdown between the law and the leeches in a high-rise building, closely parallels that of The Raid: Redemption, an explosively energetic martial-arts fiesta that came out earlier this year.

Instead of having that film's riotous, high-octane energy, Dredd settles for less carnage and chaos. The action sequences, which are seldom and seldom easy to decipher, are bludgeoned with a chaotic techno soundtrack and CGI splatter, making the on-screen violence resemble more of an arcade shoot-em-up than a well-storyboarded assembly of image and sound.

Dredd’s dreary, metallic sets make it look like any average video game, although one that’s hard to participate in. More disappointing is how few obstacles there are for Dredd and Cassandra to overcome throughout the film's middle section.

Short on fury and conflict, the film's script, by Alex Garland of 28 Days Later fanfare, only resonates with Cassandra's character arc. The young recruit struggles with choosing between regular civility and the haunting acts of violence she would have to commit as a judge, and it's the only notable character detail within the film.

Urban’s growl makes the cadence of the cartoonish dialogue more interesting, but beyond his helmet shell, it's a fairly non-descript law enforcement role. Lena Headey’s Ma-Ma is even blander, a barely menacing villain that, like the film, has little personality.