Kill Switch (2017)

Directed by: Tim Smit | 88 minutes | action, science fiction, thriller | Actors: Dan Stevens, Bérénice Marlohe, Mike Reus, Bas Keijzer, Tygo Gernandt, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Charity Wakefield, Kasper van Groesen, Mike Lebanon, Don Alphonso, Chloe-May Cuthill, Bastiaan Rook

Filmmakers are always looking for the next groundbreaking technique that will rock the industry. Often other media are then looked to for inspiration. Now that games are becoming more and more cinematic, it makes sense that the film world sometimes takes over from video games. For example, a while back the movie ‘Hardcore Henry’ was released, an experiment that was filmed entirely from the first person. Special effects technician Tim Smit tries to breathe life into this concept and comes up with his first film ‘Kill Switch’.

Unfortunately, ‘Kill Switch’ falls into the exact same pitfalls (and a few more) as ‘Hardcore Henry’. Where movies and video games differ is that one is passive and the other active. The plot of both media is therefore often adapted to this. In the case of ‘Kill Switch’, unfortunately, that is absolutely not the case. Scientist Will Porter (Dan Stevens) must move a package from point A to point B as his environment quite literally collapses. This wafer-thin fact is further completed with a number of science fiction clichés and a few extremely meaningless secondary characters (played by Bérénice Marlohe and Tygo Gernandt, among others).

The gimmick of the perspective in the first person is well chosen with this premise, but nowhere does it really become revolutionary or does the Smits end product take it to a higher level. In fact, at some point it even gets a little annoying. The fast movements make the viewer especially nauseous and the flaws in storytelling with this style come to light very quickly when the running time is only 88 minutes. How different it is with a video game, which in this style certainly needs at least four to eight hours to properly convey the story.

Ultimately, ‘Kill Switch’ doesn’t do much good. The style is certainly interesting, but story-wise it doesn’t do anything that really works. Normally the action should provide the fun, but this one is never interesting to watch. Especially because the viewer constantly has the feeling that they have to pick up a controller and play the rest of the film themselves. Admittedly: the ingredients to create a cool experience are certainly present, only a completely wrong medium has been chosen.

Editorial Cinema magazine

Rating: 1

Cinema release: June 1, 2017
DVD and Blu-ray Release: October 18, 2017