They don’t come much darker than this. The setting is future America,  what’s left of the east coast: a mega city that stretches from Boston to D.C.  where criminals and gangs rule the  crowded streets and town-sized buildings. The only order comes from the judges. They’re  cop, judge, jury and executioner all in one. If it all sounds vaguely familiar to non-comic  book fans, that’s because it’s a remake of a ’95 Sly Stallone flick.

Judge Dredd  (played by Karl Urban) is training a possible new recruit (Olivia Thirlby of “Juno” and “The Wackness”) when they run into the mother of all gangsters: a woman who calls herself Ma-Ma  (Lena Headley). We never get to see Dredd’s face . He’s helmeted at all times so what little wooden acting  Urban does, he need only  use his  mouth.  Thirlby gets to go helmet-less because she has awesome  psychic powers  , which would be lessened by a helmet. Right.  Yeah- there are more holes in this story than in swiss cheese.

Still, the effects are pretty awesome – especially when  they involve a super new drug that not only creates a high, it seriously  slows down time.  Which brings a whole new meaning to torture. I wasn’t too impressed by the 3-D. The best of it was in the opening  credits. Not a good sign.

This a relentlessly bleak, dark, fast-paced  ghastly violent grade-B film that blessedly lasts 90 minutes and makes no apologies for what it is. I smell the start of a new franchise.

1 star