Quite rightly an ultra-violent shoot-em-up, Dredd ticks all the boxes. Based on the characters from the characters from 2000AD created by Wagner & Ezquerra It never tries to be more than it is, and with Karl Urban growling like he's auditioning for Batman, director Pete Travis and writer Alex Garland utterly nail the tone. The dystopian future of MegaCityOne is grittily realised, with post-apocalyptic justice meted out by Judges that embody the law - Dredd the most ruthless of them all. Nothing much happens other than Dredd and rookie Anderson (the excellent Olivia Thirlby) get sent to investigate a multiple murder in 200 storey tower block PeachTrees, owned in all but name by gangster Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), get trapped in it and end end up having to shoot their way back out. No need for characterisation, this is all about mindless violence, and unapologetically so. It's not entirely without characterisation though - Dredd does develop an uneasy relationship with the psychic Anderson, just never at the expense of him being an utterly unrepentant hardass. It gleeful evokes similar ultra-violent films of the eighties, and you half expect Arnie to come in barking catchphrases, but Urban more than ably acquits himself doing just that. So this rebooted universe could have been fleshed out a bit more fully, but it's a small quibble. Anderson becomes a dominant character in her own right, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, and the film shows it's not just superheroes succeeding in milking the comic book trend in the cinema right now. Looking forward to universe building in the sequel!