Judge Dredd, played by Karl Urban. Screenshot from the clip.
For everyone else, however, this Judge Dredd “red band” clip is definitely NSFW.
I’ve been a fan of Judge Dredd ever since my British husband moved his 2000 AD comic book collection into my tiny apartment, because if you have to have a tiny apartment, you should at least fill it with awesome things. So I happen to know that Ol’ Stoney Face is not afraid to use armed force when the situation demands it. Here, Dredd must have felt that this situation needed serious armed force.
Some backstory: Mega-City One’s judges are judges first and executioners last (the jury bit got lost), and they’re trained since age 5 that the law is of paramount importance. So Dredd doesn’t typically start shooting perps unless the situation is too violent or dangerous to make an arrest. Not that you’d know from the clip, below.
Dredd and a psychic rookie, Cassandra Anderson, bust in on a room of heavily armed, drug-using bad guys. The bad guys are taken down with serious percussive force after Dredd shoots all but one in the cheek–not a move I recall from the comic.
The 2000 AD geek in me is wondering why Dredd would go for a frontal assault, which would put his and his rookie’s life at risk. That same geeky voice is wondering why he would switch his gun to Hi-Ex mode inside an apartment. But the film geek in me loves the intense colors and fantastic use of slow motion.
For more on Judge Dredd, read 2000 AD, the weekly comic anthology where he’s appeared since issue #2. It’s really, really good.
Thanks to Dan Delaney.