The British comic book Judge Dredd made its debut in the mid-1970s, starring a helmeted lawman who was judge, jury and executioner in a nearly lawless anarchy of the future.
Coming out in the recession-racked '70s, when civil unrest was common in the UK, US and other corners of the West, one might have seen it as a celebration of a kind of Dirty Harry justice - simple, bloody solutions to socio-criminal ills.
And what about Dredd today?
"Dredd is perfectly placed in our times," said Urban, best known for playing Dr McCoy in the big-screen Star Trek franchise.
"Our film is the perfect representation of the character that [authors] John Wagner [and Carlos Ezquerra] created back in '75.
"Since the creation of Dredd, one can argue that there's been a continual escalation of Big Brother watching over all of us, a steady erosion of civil rights.
Unfortunately, incidents like 9/11 have given us laws like The Patriot Act, a necessity for this day and age.
"Thematically, Dredd was ahead of his time."
The 40-year-old New Zealander endured months in a gym and weeks in a South African boot camp to get in shape to play the judge. After all, he's following Sylvester Stallone, the character's previous big-screen alter-ego.
More demanding, Urban said, was spending the entire film in a helmet with an opaque visor covering most of his face.
"It's a huge challenge," he said. "The challenge was how to communicate to the audience without the use of my eyes.
"The challenge was compounded by the fact that the character of Dredd operates with a particularly narrow bandwidth," Urban continues.
"He's a character who is highly trained - trained to keep his emotions in check."
He's also a man of few words.
And because Dredd is authorised to dispense spleen-for-a-spleen justice on the criminals who constantly cross his path, most of his pronouncements are of the order of "Do you have anything to say before sentencing?" as he aims a gun at their chests.
How'd he come up with that lights-out voice?
"In my research, I came across a panel in one of the comics that described Dredd's voice as being 'Like a saw cutting through bone'," he said.
"That was a starting point.
"I was also cognisant of the fact that in our story, Dredd uses his voice as a weapon. The voice really had to have that versatility about it. That was the genesis."
But his hoarse, ominous diction as Dredd is strongly reminiscent of a certain American action star who talks to chairs. Intentional?
"Funnily enough ... one of their [Wagner and Ezquerra's] inspirations for the character was Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry," Urban says.
"I've seen all those movies. I saw them as a kid. I certainly didn't go back and try to emulate that. But I do like the fact that people feel it resonates with that."
By the way, the helmet wasn't the only wardrobe stricture faced by Urban and by Olivia Thirlby as his rookie partner.
As judges in Mega City One, they wear head-to-toe leather outfits moulded to their body armour.
"It was physically gruelling," he admits, "and we were shooting in the middle of a South African summer."
Urban already has two franchises - maybe three - to which he has obligations. He returns as "Bones" McCoy in the next Star Trek film, Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013. He's a part of the Vin Diesel Chronicles of Riddick series. He may even reprise his secret agent role in the sequel to Red, the Bruce Willis/ Helen Mirren action comedy.
But it's McCoy where his long-term plans lie, a character he lobbied hard for the chance to play, and a role he relishes.
"Think about it," he says.
"They're action films, with heroes. And McCoy isn't really heroic. He's got this comic humanity that makes him stand out in that universe. Who wouldn't love playing that?"
Incredibly, he says he'd be a lot busier if he gave in to industry pressure and relocated to Los Angeles. But Urban, who was born in Wellington and now lives in Auckland, has never considered leaving New Zealand.
"I believe in balance," he says, "and don't think it would be fair on my kids to make that sort of sacrifice to take them away from their grandparents and cousins and friends.
"Consequently, I commute," he says, laughing.
Urban has two sons with his wife, Natalie. The flight from New Zealand to South Africa, to shoot Dredd 3D at the newly built Cape Town Film Studios, was arduous, but nothing compared to the European locations he faced on films such as The Bourne Supremacy.
"It's a complete 26-hour ordeal flying to Europe," he said.
That's the price you pay to be a Hollywood star who chooses to live halfway around the world.
But this was always the dream for Urban, even as a boy.
"My mother worked at a company that would rent out film equipment to productions," he says.
"And every so often when a major New Zealand film was completed, the crew and cast would come to the warehouse and we would screen the film they'd just made on the garage door.
"So even at 8 years old, I was watching this renaissance period of New Zealand cinema, seeing Geoff Murphy's Utu and Roger Donaldson's Smash Palace.
"It made a strong impression on me. I knew that's what I want to do.
"I not only fell in love with the medium of cinema but also the people who made film."
His youngest son, Indiana, is even named in a sense for Urban's favourite action star when he was growing up: Harrison Ford.
"My wife and I were watching Raiders of the Lost Ark one day and there's a scene where Marion has been abducted by the Arab swordsman," Urban says, smiling at the memory.
"She's in a basket and she's calling out, 'Indy! Indy!' And we just looked at each other and it was her choice. She was like, 'That's it. That's the name.' I was very happy with that."
Let's just hope some expectant mother doesn't walk out of Urban's new film similarly inspired and decide to name her son Dredd.
Dredd is earning early praise from comic-book fan websites, and even the trade publication Variety noted that it "reinstates the sombre brutality missing from the UK comic book icon's previous screen outing".
Urban hopes "we've made an instant cult classic".
"But let's be honest, movies like this that open in September don't do nearly the box office that summer films do.
"So while I would be delighted to play the character again, if it's just a one-off experience, I'm still proud of it."
- Additional reporting by David Hiltbrand.
