A Superior Sequel
Summary
Saying Kill ‘Em All 2 is better than the first film is hardly great praise, but I actually had a fun time here as (despite the obvious use of body doubles) there is still plenty of action and it’s a brisk watch at around 85 minutes.
Plot: Phillip comes face to face with a Russian-French terrorist who comes exact vengeance on him for killing his brother.
Review: I don’t think anyone was desperately waiting for a sequel to Kill ‘Em All which remains one of JCVD’s worst films, so I went into this follow up with low expectations. This is surprisingly a far superior film to the first and dare I say it, I had a fun time with it.
It has plenty of flaws like the usual use of body doubles in a lot of the fight scenes and Van Damme’s voice is badly mimicked during a phonecall scene which goes back to the days of Seagal’s straight to video movies where he didn’t even finish recording the dialogue.
Kill ‘Em All 2 is pleasingly short running at around 85 minutes long and there is enough action packed into the runtime to keep things moving. Peter Stormare plays the usual two-faced friend, which he seems to get type cast in. He’s actually very nice in real life.
Andrei Lenart plays the main villain Vlad Petrovic who wants revenge after Phillip (JCVD) killed his brother in the last film. Phillip is living a comfortable life with his daughter but when Vlad’s men come calling, they find themselves in harm’s way once again.
I will always be a JCVD apologist and even if nobody likes a film of his I will usually defend it just because he’s my childhood hero.
This is generic stuff plot-wise but I like a simple actioner which does exactly what you expect. I don’t even remember much about the first film, but it did have the bonus of Daniel Bernhardt as the antagonist. The villains here are mostly Eastern European stereotypes that make little impact and I would have preferred a proper hand to hand fight with Vlad at the end… however, his comeuppance is still thoroughly satisfying.
Overall, Kill ‘Em All 2 (which should have been called Kill ‘Em All Again) is a superior sequel which still is hardly prime JCVD, but I still had a fun time with it and it was a quick and painless watch.