Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Kill 'em All Blu-ray Movie Review

Damme'd if you do. And they did.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman June 9, 2017

Well, here's another direct-to-video Action bore starring the once-venerable Jean-Claude Van Damme. Though the actor rarely does anything decent anymore, his once-storied career saw him star in disposable, but very entertaining, studio films like Hard Target and Kickboxer (and Cyborg, one of this reviewer's favorite guilty pleasures). Now, aging but still unquestionably fit and capable, he's found his niche in the low budget DTV arena, churning out garbage films like Kill 'em All for a quick buck in exchange for his marketable mug and name. By this point, most movie fans should know not to expect the world from these sorts of movies. For every kinda-sorta gem there are a hundred throwaways. Make that 101. Director Peter Malota, a former stuntman and stunt choreographer who worked with Van Damme on some of his most popular movies (Universal Soldier, Double Impact), makes his directorial debut here, and it shows. While the movie is by no means a complete amateurish disaster, it's too dependent on forced style that diminishes rather than compliments the film's meager, practically nonexistent narrative structure. Add in a bad script, sluggish performances, and dull action and the movie never even stands a chance.

Suzanne (Autumn Reeser) is a nurse who finds herself under harsh interrogation and scrutiny by CIA and FBI agents (Peter Stormare, María Conchita Alonso) about her involvement in a shootout at her hospital. Earlier, a rush of wounded patients, which included Phillip (Jean-Claude Van Damme), arrived at the hospital. And hell came with him. Multiple gunmen, hellbent on hunting Phillip down, invaded the hospital and engaged him. Soon, he was left to defend and depend on Suzanne, who had no choice but to remain at his side if she was to survive the ordeal.

In the film's first few minutes, viewers will see fast motion, slow motion, blurred motion, still frames, and a strobing effect. In six minutes there's enough try-hard style to last a lifetime, never mind a single movie. It's emblematic of the entire experience, a movie in which the dominant factor is the obvious attempt to stylize things in a futile effort to mask the core structural shortcomings, narratively and considering the performances alike. The movie also lacks vitality in its production. Action is slow even with the skilled actors on display and the setting is bland. A bad setting often seems magnified in these cheapie movies, another example being the recently released The Marine 5: Battleground. At least Kill 'em All is better lit and more visually alive, but the movie struggles to find an authentic posture, playing more like a stilted, they-settled-for-less sort of experience rather than one that really takes advantage of its locations. Action scenes lack vigor. They're straightforward, unimaginatively staged, lacking even a smidgen of identity. It's fun to watch Van Damme play against his son, but the movie's action draw starts and stops there, a death sentence for a movie titled Kill 'em All.

Van Damme the elder looks tired in the movie, not because his character has been through the ringer -- bloodied, wounded, shot at, mentally and emotionally drained -- but because the actor appears disinterested, and who can blame him. It's not like Van Damme regularly starred in movies with any kind of depth to them, but one cannot watch the movie and help but to wonder if the process is wearing him out. He's certainly a physical specimen even at his age, but the movie doesn't challenge him beyond the physical. It's a performance done entirely by rote, by movie muscle memory that allows him to wield a gun, move about, and interact with his co-stars on autopilot. The flip side of the coin is that the script gives him no reason to push himself. He seems to know that anything above and beyond showing up would be an exercise in futility. Much the same can be said of the rest of the cast, particularly veterans Peter Stormare and María Conchita Alonso. The former in particular struggles to make his part into anything meaningful. He spends the movie sitting in a chair opposite the more enthusiastic Autumn Reeser; the two of them engage in a seemingly endless tit-for-tat exchange of barbs and quips as they verbally spar over her involvement in the action. The scenes lack energy, with Stormare absolutely phoning in the work, appearing more disinterested and tired than Van Damme. Again, though, it's hard to lay the blame completely on the actors when their script is so transparently banal, absent even a hint of character vitality or purposeful drama.

Kill 'em All Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kill 'em All was digitally photographed, the norm for contemporary DTV flicks. It looks fairly good, if not a bit straightforward and unassuming. Everything appears more-or-less fine; nothing looks extraordinary, and nothing looks extraordinarily bad. The only serious negative is a preponderance to display noise, even in well-lit and clean hospital background hallways. It can get fairly intensive even in good light, with lower light pushing even more. Otherwise, details are solid enough. Sweaty faces, bloody wounds, clothes, and odds and ends around the hospital enjoy a satisfying level of depth and detail. Sharpness and clarity are maintained throughout. Colors are adequately vibrant, never too loud and never too toned down. Red blood is a major standout, and Suzanne's blue shirt is one of the regular hues. Backgrounds are largely monochromatic and dull. Black levels don't struggle too much with depth or an unwanted push to brightness. The transfer is hardly a revelation, but it suits this film well enough.

Kill 'em All Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kill 'em All features a fairly basic, but good quality, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. These sorts of lower budget movies obviously often lack the sonic production values of superior, larger budget films, but it does OK with what it has to work with. Music doesn't extend incredibly far into the back, and certainly not aggressively. Clarity and spacing up front are fine, offering good instrument separation and detailing and an adequate low end push. Gunfire likewise does just enough to satisfy. It does well in presenting different calibers from different distances that always give the movie a fairly realistic flavor, though certainly gunfire in a hospital corridor would be much more dynamic and punishing than what is presented here. For a movie soundtrack though, it's adequate. A few mild atmospherics creep in to keep things balanced. Dialogue is clear enough (beyond a strangely tinny moment in a stairwell at the 42:40 mark) with good prioritization and center positioning.

Kill 'em All Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Beyond a few trailers for other Sony releases, this Blu-ray release of Kill 'em All contains no supplemental content. No DVD or digital versions are included, either.

Kill 'em All Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kill 'em All is a throwaway movie. It's technically overdone, narratively vacuous, and depends on the worst case combination of bad style trying to overcome no substance. Van Damme fans with a high tolerance for bad moviemaking (and they should have built up an immunity at this point) might find the movie enjoyable enough, but for anyone else, this is a big, fat skip. Sony's featureless Blu-ray does at least offer capable video and audio.