Kill Switch (Redivider)

The worst kind of science-fiction film: the kind that coasts on a central gimmick instead of delivering either visceral or intellectual thrills.

Imagining the imminent end of the world has been boring for years now in movies, and the low-budget sci-fi thriller "Kill Switch" is no exception.

A pointless gush of science-fiction bilge.

"Kill Switch" might have been the next "Primer" or "District B13," but instead it feels like a demo reel for a game that nobody can play.

Kill Switch is essentially a cutscene from Halo that somehow stretches for 90 minutes, and you keep wanting to press the skip button to start playing.

The action level is never quite as high as it should be to justify the first-person view, and so it feels too often like we're watching somebody play an RPG, which is boring as Hell.

A visually ambitious, convoluted muddle of gamer-influenced science fiction.

Through visual trickery and a jumbled chronology, the muddled film is structured as a puzzle about corporate greed, socioeconomic class and technological overreach that most moviegoers won't care enough to solve.

It looks fine enough, but looking fine enough can't be the extent of an entire movie.

It's either puzzling or vexing, and either way it's plain old disappointing.

The tiresome, desensitizing first-person-shooter aesthetics in Kill Switch (not to be confused with Steven Seagal's 2008 thriller) diminish what modest humanity Smit's movie musters.