Kritiken

Vicious and amoral, Dredd doesn't aspire to any specific program of prestige, lessons or values. It's proudly vulgar b-movie trash, an apparent celebration of violent vigilante justice that ends communicating deeper ideas without aiming for any obvious message.

If Dredd's attitude is decidedly less intellectually robust than the alternative, at least it's easy to comprehend and digest, and it makes for a fun bout of escapism that almost necessarily can't be taken seriously.

This is a film of atmosphere and allusion, no superfluous effects shots or establishing montages to create a bloated idea of what this future world is. In pessimistic detective mode, we see it from the ground up.

This isn't a bad movie version of "Judge Dredd," but it's also too little too late. Those who aren't so familiar with the source material may feel differently. But if they don't also feel the presence of the myriad post-modern sci-fi clichés that may well have been engendered by the original, and that are in full force here, well, good for them I suppose. I myself felt like I'd seen too much of "Dredd" before.

As bullets rip through flesh, and bodies fall through the air accompanied by sparks of light and tinkling glass, Travis allows us to revel in amoral spectacle. Yes, it's bad for you, but that's what makes Dredd the hero the comic book film needs now, most of all.

It's action that doesn't reinvent the wheel. However, courtesy of Urban's amusingly gruff performance, a story that places a premium on delivering its disreputable sex-and-violence goods with a minimum of fuss or pretension, and gimmicky 3D that amplifies its over-the-top atmosphere, Dredd earns its B-movie badge.

...There's genuine artistry behind the film's video-game goals. The impressively lean script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later) is shorn of almost all superfluity beyond a few dud Schwarzeneggeresque kiss-offs, while Anthony Dod Mantle's sensational widescreen cinematography harkens back to the tension-inducing inventiveness of early John Carpenter (the added dimension is put to terrific use, whether in sinewy close-up or 100-story-drop long shot).

Dredd makes a monster of morality, offering no point of identification, no escape from its onslaught of exploding faces and hyper-violent overkill. A grand, underlying irony may be presumed, but this could only be a defensive pose against the film's essential callousness. It is entirely un-fun, and exasperatingly gory. Punishing the bloodlust of its presumed viewer, Dredd asks not only "Where can we go from here?" but also "Why bother?