Movie Monday: Dredd Life

How far can you possibly run from a Sylvester Stallone movie? Dredd has used excellent acting, a well-told story and major contributions from the character's creator in distancing itself from the horrible 1995 flick Judge Dredd. With screenwriter Alex Garland directly behind this reboot, we have a Dredd who doesn't enter romantic relations and never EVER removes his helmet. Thank you, Hollywood!

In the nuclear wasteland that is North America, one light of life is Mega-City One, stretching from Boston to Washington, populated by over 800 million people. With so much humanity crammed together, chaos and criminal activity run the streets, with innocents often trapped in their hellish nets. The city's response to the overwhelming violence? The Judges, granted the combined powers of judge, jury and - when necessary - executioner. Judge Dredd is one of the best, but even he knows that there's only so much the Judges can do in such a large city. While tasked with assessing the potential of psychic, rookie Judge Anderson, they find themselves on the bad side of drug kingpin Ma-Ma, who traps them in a slum complex and sends her men in to wipe them out. The only way out is up, and without backup Dredd and Anderson must scale 200 floors to shut down Ma-Ma's criminal enterprise if they want any chance at survival.

Dredd is written by Alex Garland and directed by Pete Travis and stars Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headey.

Click here to read the full review at Open Letters Monthly.