Review: Kill Switch

Marginally better than last year's migraine-inducing, first-person perspective action film Hardcore Henry, the sci-fi Kill Switch features a back story that's far more interesting than what is seen on-screen.

In 2009, Dutch filmmakers Tim Smit and Steven Roeters released the 10-minute short "What's in the Box?," which featured video game-style POV with special effects made all the more impressive by the fact that the entire thing cost 150 Euros. The short went viral, accumulating well over 2 million views on YouTube, mainly due to its purported connectivity to the Half-Life video game series. Expanding the short into a feature film, Smit once again proves resourceful with a comparatively larger but still limited budget, creating remarkable visuals that almost compensate for the lackluster narrative.

The film stars Dan Stevens as Will Porter, a former NASA astronaut and physicist hired by the mysterious Alterplex Energy Corporation to carry out an important mission. As the Earth's fossil fuel supply is close to non-existent, Alterplex have come up with a controversial solution to provide a new source of sustainable energy. The solution is called the Echo, which is a carbon copy of Earth itself. Unfortunately, there seems to be something awry with the energy beam that connects the Echo to Earth, and Will is tasked with transporting a box called the Redivider to the tower in Holland which houses the energy beam in order to stabilise the system.

Unfortunately, something happens during his travel and, when he wakes up in the Echo, he finds himself in a hostile world where he must navigate armed rebels, security drones, environmental anomalies (ships and trains falling from a whirlpool in the sky) caused by the beam's instability, as well as the potential duplicitousness of Alterplex's Abigail (Bérénice Marlohe).

Stevens doesn't really have much to work with here since all of the scenes in the Echo are shot through the interface of Will's helmet. The first-person POV is done far more fluidly than what was executed in Hardcore Henry, whose camerawork often resembled severe seizures. Flashbacks to Will's life on Earth with his sister (Charity Wakefield) and his special-needs nephew (Kasper van Groesen) provide motivation for Will to follow through with his almost impossible mission, but they dull the film's already shaky narrative momentum.

Nevertheless, much like District 9 for Neill Blomkamp, Kill Switch should serve as a solid calling card for Smit should Hollywood ever come knocking.

Kill Switch

Directed by: Tim Smit

Written by: Charlie Kindinger, Omid Nooshin

Starring: Dan Stevens, Bérénice Marlohe, Mike Reus, Bas Keijzer, Tygo Gernandt, Gijs Scholten van Aschat, Kasper van Groesen