Karl Urban thinks the violence portrayed in 'Dredd 3D' is similar to 'A Clockwork Orange'.

The 40-year-old actor - who portrays Judge Dredd in the forthcoming action movie - admits he ''recoiled'' the first time he ever watched the film because the violence is so intense and he believes it is depicted by director Pete Travis in a similar way to how Stanley Kubrick explored such scenes in the disturbing 1971 crime drama.

He said: ''When I sat down and watched it back, I recoiled. I think the violence is actually a character in the film.

''Unlike a lot of films that come out where you get desensitised to the violence because you don't really see the impact, you do see the impact the violence has in our film and I think what the writer has done is smart. He's treated the violence the same way Stanley Kubrick would explore those things in Clockwork Orange and it generates a real edge.''

The 40-year-old actor admits he read countless 'Judge Dredd' comic books to learn as much about the muscular character as he could, but the 'Star Trek' actor wasn't keen on the titular character's suit which he had to wear while filming in the South African heat.

He added to the Daily Star newspaper: ''I read as much Dredd as I could get my hands on. Then when I got to Cape Town I donned the uniform and for two weeks before the cameras even began rolling I was wearing the uniform in the midst of a hot South African summer - that can put you in a mood!

''The voice too, that was described in the comics as 'like a saw cutting through bone'. So what you get in the film is my interpretation of that. Dredd uses his voice as a weapon so it had to have a resonance and authority to it. But I didn't want it to go to an extreme where it was artificially enhanced. The voice you hear in the movie is the voice that was heard on set.''