Kickboxer: Vengeance

Oh man this was so disappointing.  Not that we truly need a remake of Kickboxer in this world but I had high hopes considering this is only part one of at least a two part series (Kickboxer: Retaliation comes out sometime this year).  The idea of a new kickboxer saga told over multiple films is a great idea that sets my imagination on fire.  But fuck, this first one is kinda shitty guys.

The story is basically the same as the original: kickboxer Eric Sloane travels to Thailand to fight.  He gets (in this case) killed by the formidable Tong Po (Dave Bautista (wrestling shit)) in the ring.  Eric’s brother Kurt (Alain Moussi (stunts: X-Men: Days of Future Past, Suicide Squad)) decides to train with a master (Jean-Claude Van Damme (The Quest, Enemies Closer)) to avenge Eric’s death.

It’s shocking how nothing really works.  The fights are not choreographed that well, the changes made to the story aren’t as good, the acting is not very good (except for Bautista who pulls off a nice stoic and menacing performance), the editing makes things a tad more confusing than they needed to be and the production feels sorta cheaper than it should.  Even small stuff like the bloody scars on Kurt’s body from Tong Po pounding on him with glass covered fists look terribly fake.

Regarding the cheapness point, most of the money had to have gone to Van Damme and Bautista who just made the huge goddamn smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy.  There couldn’t have been a lot leftover for everything else.  And they must’ve needed money bad because if you look at the credits there are thirty four fucking producers listed!  Jeez.

But budget shouldn’t be much of an excuse and isn’t the biggest issue here.  Really the movie is sloppy more than anything else.  Every so often during a fight you can see a hit not land quite right or someone’s too obviously pulling their punch or kick.  And none of the fights are all that exciting.  The moves don’t flow or build upon each other.  It’s all pretty blah.  One particularly bad example is there’s a fight that’s supposed to take place on top of two live elephants but the filmmakers couldn’t figure out how to hide enough of the clearly fake elephant statues they used.

This film does nothing better than the original Kickboxer and that’s a little weird because as much as I love the ’89 version it’s definitely not the best kumite type movie.  Hell, it’s not even the best martial arts tournament movie that Van Damme’s made.  My point is there was room for improvement but Kickboxer: Vengeance (cool title by the way) doesn’t cut it (or kick it?).

Well hopefully number two will get its shit together.  And it does have a couple of things going for it.  The biggest is that it will tell an original story and not be a remake, unless it’s a remake of Kickboxer 2: The Road Back which I never saw but now this series reboot concept is starting to get out of control.  The other is a fresh director, Dimitri Logothetis.  I haven’t seen anything he’s done but I certainly have been meaning to check out Body Shot in the last twenty years so I guess this is my opportunity to do that.

If you haven’t seen Van Damme’s Kickboxer, I mean the older one (from the 80’s), you really ought to fix your situation.  And then don’t see this new one, you’re not missing anything.