The Judge Dredd body count blows away Commando

Judge Dredd. He is the Law. And you never see his eyes.

For those of you unfamiliar with the infamous body count in Schwarzenegger's "Commando," for a long time, it held a record for most people killed in a single film.

I don't know the exact numbers, but Dredd kills a lot of folks in this reboot done some seventeen years since his disastrous big screen appearance helmed by Sylvester Stallone. In my mind, the Judge Dredd body count blows away "Commando."

In looking back at this film , the first thing question that pops into my mind is: who knew women could be so brutal, disgusting, and evil?

Lena Headey as Ma-Ma. She gives a chilling performance as someone
you don't want to cross.

Lena Headey plays Ma-Ma, Mega-City One's most horrible citizen. She manufactures a drug called slo-mo which causes a high that slows down time to 1% normal for those who use it. Imagine life and all of your experiences suddenly going into bullet time for a while. That's what slo-mo is like and the effect that is shown on screen is really cool (a silent nod to the brilliant Wachowski's who debuted this technique in 1999 in the groundbreaking film, "The Matrix").

So what makes this "Ma-Ma" so horrible? In just one scene, she orders three men drugged on slo-mo and then flayed alive. Yes, all of their skin is cut off. Imagine that AND on this drug. It would seem like it lasted forever. And then while they're still on it and not quite dead...she drops them off a 200-story balcony to fall to their deaths...to experience their own heads exploding in gushing red gore in microseconds against unyielding concrete.

The concrete arcology called "Peach Trees." It's probably named that
because life is so "peachy" there. Basically, it's a human sewer.

It chills my blood to even think about it.

Into this scene comes Judge Dredd, and he is there to pronounce judgement (death) upon Ma-Ma. And a fight to the top of a spooky and dreary arcology that houses 75,000 people begins. The blood bath is pretty amazing, and the violence is accentuated by new and different ways to kill people. He sets them on fire, blows their heads to pieces, throws them off balconies, shoots them dead, butchers them, etc.

Do not be alarmed. It's just a little incineration.

And some of it is done in incredible slow motion so that you can see flesh being torn assunder frame by frame.

I have to say, Judge Dredd is not a film for everyone. But it is a film for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the violence carried out in a way that riveted me to the screen.

What about you?

Did you go see this movie this weekend? If so, what did you think?