3. Superior Villains
Armand Assante overacts his ass off as Dredd's brother Rico in the 1995 film, and though this provides a few unintentional giggles, his character, so important in the comics, is ultimately reduced to a lame bore, relying on a ridiculous-looking robot which is fixed-up and sent on a killing spree to do Rico's bidding. Embarrassing for Assante it is then, that the slight, relatively diminutive Lena Headey has a stronger and genuinely more imposing physical presence in Dredd as Ma-Ma, the drug-peddling ex-prostitute running the Slow-Mo operation in Mega City One. Though Headey's character is not especially well-developed herself, as far as threats go, she is far more convincing, and we can sense her ruthlessness with her order early on in the film to throw three disobedient rivals from the balcony of one of the apartments, resulting in a revolting, gory splat at the bottom.