“Dredd 3D” is a meat grinder of a flick that assaults the audience’s sensory organs with wave after wave of mayhem, death and gratuitousness. This is a movie that aspires to the ne plus ultra of rated R, possessing qualities that will surely enshrine it as a cult favorite but damn it for those who want more than full-fledged viscerality. Forget the Stallone version from 1995: “Dredd 3D” is the true heir to its comic book source. Judge

In some alternate reality, critics waited with bated breath for the release of an Oscar-worthy “Resident Evil: Retribution.” On this earth, however, they were sharpening their knives for director Paul W.S. Anderson’s fifth entry in the videogame-based “Resident Evil” series. Considered under standard film criteria, “Retribution” unabashedly meets those expectations. Yet Anderson nonetheless creates visual

“Total Recall”, the unnecessary remake starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, and Kate Beckinsale, proves that all the computer-generated imagery in the digital world cannot simulate a believable storyline. This movie stands proudly in the company of “Transformers”, “G.I. Joe”, and every other action flick with gossamer believability. The story involves a factory worker named Douglas Quaid (the pectoral Mr. Farrell) who struggles

Comic book mavens rejoice, for Marvel Studios has concocted a heady and wonderful sensory brew in “The Avengers.” Weaving together the origin stories of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America, “The Avengers” packages a star-studded cast, one that could easily have imploded under its own weight, into a fleet-footed, yet cohesive, plotline. Nefarious forces from other worlds threaten Earth, led by the sneering and magnetic trickster god

Smart horror–is that an oxymoron? Not in “The Cabin in the Woods,” a devilishly twisted film written by Joss Whedon, maker of beloved TV series “Buffy” and “Firefly.” Whedon starts with a generic plot premise that has been hackneyed to death: youth in the woods, getting feisty inside and out a cabin, and then getting killed.

Luckily, Whedon torques this premise and pushes into unfa-

If Hollywood summer blockbusters leave you dissatisfied because of their unreal veneer of CGI effects, or if PG-13 ratings turn your stomach because you yearn for a hard R action flick, then you must watch The Raid: Redemption, an Indonesian action dynamo that raises the bar for raw kinetic energy per-screen-minute. Set in the drably-lit slums of Jakarta, Raid tells the story of Rama, a SWAT officer who along with his team assaults an apartment