Kill Switch (Blu-ray / DVD)
Starring Dan Stevens, Berenice Marlohe, Tygo Gernandt
Directed by Tim Smit
In the future, everybody wants to harvest some energy – be it for the betterment of the entire planet, or for one’s own personal greedy stash. In any event, director Tim Smit decides to use the first-person POV to a nausea-inducing level in order to convey his film’s story – Kill Switch is the name, and if you despise watching someone play a video game for the better part of 90 minutes, boy are you out of luck.
Alterplex is one of those conglomerate companies that has the plans for a healthier planet in this age of…well, planets that are suffering due to a cataclysmic series of events. Good guy Will Porter (Stevens) is the man approached by the company to help attain sustainable energy by constructing an alternate Earth, if you will. It shall be called “The Echo,” and its sole purpose for existing will be to have its energy ripped from its system like a young pup taken off of the teat (classic). The supposed foolproof plan apparently didn’t factor in some fools screwing it up, and that’s when Will heads into action, and when I mean action, I mean “player 1 has entered the game.” What the film leaves us with is a very scattered plot, even more scattered visuals, and the feeling like our eyes are going to dart right out of our skulls.
Smit certainly had this film on the right track with the idea of what he wanted to get done, but the lack of plot plausibility and unlikable characters leave this one just floating in orbit, just waiting to crash into something. We’re beaten about the skull with prophecies of other dimensions, devious intentions and oh my god, the idea that our beloved planet is going to go swirling down the porcelain relatively soon. Normally I’d rip apart the whole first-person shooter aspect, mainly due to the fact that my stomach just can’t swing it anymore these days, but some of the visuals are fun to get lost in, albeit for a short time. Flashbacks are also used to aid in the telling of Will’s tale, whether or not you’d be interested – trust me, before long you’ll be back in first-person mode before you know it. Bottom line here is, this film does in fact have an audience, and they’ll more than likely devour this and look for seconds – for this cat, I’ll stick to the nice, subtle, more stable ground shots that don’t tend to make my beer gut rumble with uneasiness.
-
Film
Categorized:Reviews
