5) Dredd
Unlike most other comic characters popular in the mainstream, Judge Dredd isn’t averse to getting bloody. He’s not a moral figure like Superman or Spider-Man – Dredd is a full-on fascist, punching holes through skulls and shooting criminals into mulch. So it’s amazing that he got his own faithful adaptation (after 1995’s abortive Stallone-starring effort) that actually took the violence from comic book to movie screen.
If anything, Pete Travis’ Dredd goes further than the comics, turning shootouts into stylized slow motion bloodbaths. The movie finds Karl Urban’s Judge Dredd holed up in a tower block versus dozens of assailants, led by Lena Headey’s psychopathic Ma-Ma, peddler of a drug called Slo-Mo.
All in all, the film is simple and uncluttered, giving Travis and writer Alex Garland a template through which to unleash the true savage nature of the comics’ Dredd.