“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

The biggest problem with 300, Zack Snyder’s retelling of the Greco-Persian battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., is its audience. Or, rather, two specific segments of that audience, to wit: a) Iranians, not happy at the humiliating—for them—last stand of the 300 Spartan warriors against the Aechemenid king Xerxes’ vast army. Chatrooms have been buzzing with furious bitching, much in the spirit of the Kazakhs taking offense at Borat and the Islamic Republic’s official protests at Persepolis, another graphic novel brought to the screen and much lauded at the recent Cannes Film Festival. b) Serious film critics, who have been analyzing and criticizing 300 as they would Carl Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc or Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.