Film Review: Kill 'Em All 2 狂風廝殺2 (2024) - USA / Italy
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 5/10
Rating: ★ ★ 1/2
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There is a specific, almost melancholy patience required to watch the late-period filmography of Jean-Claude Van Damme. It is the patience of watching a once-unstoppable force of nature learn to exist as a landscape feature. In the new film "Kill 'Em All 2," the 63-year-old "Muscles from Brussels" doesn't so much star in a movie as he occupies it, like a granite statue that has been temporarily rehoused in a charming Italian villa for the summer.
The film, arriving seven years after its predecessor, finds Van Damme's character, Phillip, attempting to enjoy a quiet retirement. But as is the law in the direct-to-video universe, peace is a commodity that cannot be tolerated for more than fifteen minutes. Soon, Phillip's daughter Vanessa (Jacqueline Fernandez) is kidnapped by the vengeful son of a man Phillip dispatched in the previous film, forcing our hero to dust off his firearms and his formidable eyebrow-furrowing technique.
The film's title, "Kill 'Em All 2," promises a certain gritty, industrial efficiency. The film itself, however, delivers something far more peculiar: a travel brochure for the Puglia region of Italy that has been occasionally interrupted by perfunctory gunfire. Director Valeri Milev has clearly studied the lighting techniques of luxury real estate commercials. The sunsets are golden, the stone walls are impeccably textured, and the olives on the trees look positively radiant. If you have ever wondered whether a firefight would look better if staged in front of a breathtaking 12th-century cathedral, this movie has the answer.
Van Damme, to his credit, understands the assignment. He has always possessed a strange, melancholic dignity that the industry has consistently underestimated. He moves slower now, with the heavy gait of a man carrying both his age and the weight of a thousand low-budget action scenes. When he grimaces, we feel it. His chemistry with Fernandez provides the film's fragile emotional core—a genuine sense of familial protectiveness that elevates the otherwise disposable dialogue.
The trouble is that the film seems embarrassed by its own star. We do not come to a Jean-Claude Van Damme picture for tactically-correct room clearing or shaky-cam gunplay. We come for the balletic violence, the spinning kicks, the moments where the body becomes a weapon. The action here is chopped up in the editing room, reduced to a series of quick cuts that betray a lack of confidence in the choreography. When the climax arrives, it feels less like a cathartic release and more like a contractual obligation being checked off a list.
The villain, Vlad Petrovic (Andrei Lenart), broods appropriately but exists solely as a plot delivery system. He wants revenge. We know this because he tells us, repeatedly, in the same flat tone one might use to read a grocery list. The screenplay leans heavily on the "hidden village protected by a grizzled veteran" trope, which has been a staple of the action genre for so long it should probably receive a pension.
And yet, there is something almost comforting about "Kill 'Em All 2." It is a short film—a merciful 85 minutes—and it understands its place in the ecosystem. It is not trying to be "John Wick." It is not trying to reinvent the wheel. It is trying to give Jean-Claude Van Damme a pleasant paid vacation to Italy and film him while he is there. Mission accomplished.
The movie is a perfectly functional artifact, a digital placeholder in a legendary career. It will not make new fans, but it will not particularly alienate the old ones. It is the cinematic equivalent of comfort food prepared by a chef who is thinking about his golf game.
Watch it for the Italian scenery, watch it for a brief glimpse of the old JCVD charisma, and watch it because there is a strange comfort in knowing that some things—like Van Damme squinting at bad men—remain eternal. But lower your expectations, and then lower them again. The movie is a postcard, not a masterpiece. (Neo, 2026)