10 Sci-Fi Movies That Had No Right To Be This Good

Pete Travis' Dredd is unashamedly cheesy, appallingly violent, and clichéd to the hilt. On paper, it seems like a recipe for an absolute catastrophe of a movie.

The film centers around the titular Judge Dredd, a futuristic cop with the authority to sentence and execute criminals within the confines of a vast dystopian metropolis, Mega-City One. Dredd ends up trapped within a colossal city block of apartments with a bloodthirsty gang hunting him, while a deliciously wicked Lena Headey takes the role of scarred lead antagonist Ma-Ma.

What ensues is a satirical, blood -oaked romp of a sci-fi outing, superbly helmed by a grimacing Karl Urban. Dredd effortlessly combines a thrilling story with a sustained atmosphere of white-knuckle tension, as the cast growls out the cheesiest of one-liners. Despite what appears to be a fairly limited central premise, the film has a surprising amount of twists and turns, which creates a hair-raising viewing experience.

The violence within Dredd is absolutely next level. Scenes feature people being skinned, hallucinatory castrations by teeth, and literal waves of people being mowed down by machine gun fire. It should be an absolutely nauseating experience, but the tongue-in-cheek manner of Travis' direction and Urban's straight-up badassery means that Dredd is remembered more as a superbly gritty action flick than some kind of snuff film.