You may remember a cheesy sci-fi/comic-book movie from the 1990s named “Judge Dredd” starring Sylvester Stallone (“Rocky”) and “Dredd” is its ultra-violent and dark remake. The screen will constantly be filled with gloomy hallways, dismembered bodies, people being skinned alive and a lot of blood.

In “Dredd”, we see a dystopian future where the only people offering a glimpse of law and order are the ‘judges’, who are judge, jury and executioner rolled into one. The most feared named Judge Dredd (Karl Urban “Star Trek”, “Doom”) is taking a rookie named Anderson (Olivia Thirlby “Juno”) out along with him as the duo find themselves trapped in a massive domestic complex run by a violent drug gang. They must battle to save themselves and to uphold the law.

Judge Dredd is like Harry Callahan but without any charisma and Karl Urban is no fun to watch. The gang members are all sick and twisted so it becomes boring very quickly. The vast majority are just there to be shot to pieces or burned alive or whatever. The only remotely interesting character is Anderson, who is played well by Thirlby but unfortunately she can’t put up much a fight against the rest of the film’s awfulness.

Although it was hardly a good film, the old “Judge Dredd” movie had some sort of entertaining moments in it but “Dredd” is an exercise in ugliness. Many scenes feature slow-motion so you have to endure gross-out shots of people’s faces being torn up and other lovely things. The plot is mediocre, the characters are dull and the shootouts aren’t very exciting so there is no justification for the intense violence. I’m amazed by the good reviews this film has received; maybe some people think it’s stylish yet I think it’s a bland string of gun battles smothered in violence, bad language and drug abuse.