So my first written review for The Nerd Mentality, I get to tell you folks about Kill Order, a sci-fi, action film featuring some great fight choreography… and absolutely nothing else.
David Lee, played by Chris Mark (The Hunger Games, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) is a teen with a dangerous and troubled past. David is pursued by a third-rate S.W.A.T. team…. Okay, I have to take a pause here and fill you in on a little about me, in hopes of giving you an understanding of where I’m coming from. I have a 14-year history in television and news behind the camera. So I know about cinematography and editing. And one thing I can tell you is that the little things matter. The devil is in the details… and that’s one HUGE problem I have with this movie.
The “tactical team” that attempts to apprehend David in the opening sequence all have different weaponry, which is fine and not unheard of. However, it’s the details that matter. One guy has a shotgun with a side-saddle that is holding no shells. Another guy is holding an M4 with a hologram sight… and then another guy has a 1st-gen, Vietnam War-era M-16… and HE has the shotgun shells secured in his tactical vest?!?!? Needless to say, a military consultant was not part of the production team and I’m willing to bet that the prop-guns used in this film were airsoft guns bought at Walmart with a black Sharpie used to cover up the orange safety tips. Rant over… back to the movie review. David uses the power of “Raiden-like electric eyes” to trigger his inner Neo, and fights to escape his would-be captors.
That’s pretty much how the rest of the movie goes… Seriously, the next hour and fifteen minutes are half-assed explanations on how David got his powers, the ambiguous family member dying and the ‘I must have revenge plot’, the cliche cute tag-a-long girlfriend and the douche bag bad guy. Plus the movie has no real conclusion or plot resolution.
Friends, bad science fiction films are my jam. I love movies like Ultraviolet, Final Encounter, Robot Jox…. so when I watched the teaser/trailer for this film, I thought it would be right up my alley. Oh, my sweet summer child… how wrong I was. The writing is terrible, the acting is atrocious, and the plot is all over the place with little or no direction. It’s also very possible this movie was shot on iPhones and Go Pros and edited with Windows Movie Maker.
If there is one redeeming quality to Kill Order, it would be the fight sequences. The stunt and fight choreography are actually quite good (albeit a little bit long). But rather than feeling like a part of the movie, the fights seemed more like a demo reel for stunt coordinator James Mark’s (Jumper, Pacific Rim, Dark Matter) next audition.
If you’ve ever listened to my podcast (The Unicorn and The Dozer) here on the Nerd Mentality, you know I like to give reviews on a 0 to 10 scale With a 0 being the worst movie of all time (Glitter) and a 10 being the greatest movie of all time (Empire Strikes Back)… I’m forced to give Kill Order a 0.5 and the only reason I give it half a point is for the semi-impressive fight scenes.
