Dredd 3D

Trying to bait the public into buying a franchise that no one really seems to want, this second attempt at adapting the very Brit comic discards the dry satire and focuses on the dystopian trappings of the material. As such, it just may be the most unapologetically fascist movie since Triumph of the Will. Set in the vaguely post-apocalyptic future of America where pretty much the entire population is contained in a walled slum that stretches from DC to NYC, ol’ Dredd is judge, jury and executioner over the underclass. He gets stuck with a rookie and sent to investigate a triple torture-homicide in a high rise. The murders are tied to a new street drug that slows the perception of the users down to 1 percent of normal, which is useful to the filmmaker when masturbating to the slo-mo simulation of what bullets do to human flesh. It’s pretty much just Mad Max meets The Raid. Playing the eponymous character, Karl Urban may as well have just been a CGI black-leather RoboCop (but I suppose they already used up the budget on the blood effects). And the 3D really sucked. Cinemark 14 and Feather River Cinemas. Rated R.