Director: Jason Trost,
Starring: Jason Trost, Lucas Till, James Remar, Sophie Merkley, Lee Valmassy, Sean Whalen, Nick Principe, Brian Taylor,
Running Time: 76 Minutes
Certificate: 15
Jason Trost has already impressed with his lovable dance flick THE FP. So it’s with great excitement that many will approach his latest offering. The premise is a real grabber, in that it pretty much mixes SAW with superheroes. A team of superheroes, now stripped of their powers, must make their way through a city in which a series of traps will test their moral fibre. The plot plays out in a way that allows for big budget ideas to be played out in a small budget arena. Despite this enthralling set-up, the film lacks any sort of weighty punch that would elevate it above an overcrowded market place.
The idea is good, but from the outset we’re thrust into a world with little understanding. Like so many victims in SAW, the heroes wake up and immediately enter the game. It also means we care very little for these characters. The film tries to add some back story courtesy of some flashbacks, but by then it’s already too late. ALL SUPERHEROES MUST DIE may very well want to avoid the gorefest thrill of each individual kill, as a lot happen off screen, but the ingredients are still the same. Heroes arrive at trap, try and work out a way around it, civilians die. This rinse and repeat formula fails to explore the situation to any satisfactory degree. Seeing the heroes sacrificing innocent people may have meant something if we at least got to see the faces of the victims, but they are mostly hooded. It adds to a sense of detachment that runs throughout.
Leading the gang is Trost himself, along with writing partner Lucas Till. The two share some gravitas as heroes, with Till’s role in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS has proved before, but they also deliver a lot of their dialogue with a fair degree of uncertainty and awkwardness. The problem is that a lot of the dialogue takes place during the scenes where individual are working on the traps. We get the always reliable James Remar, who is stuck behind a desk for the entire duration, giving our heroes 90 seconds to solve a puzzle, only for the powerless people in suits to start a dramatic argument. It’s also established fairly early on that the traps will go off no matter what, which kills any tension from the get-go.
It’s not terrible though, and anyone who shelled out the budget that this film had would be more than happy with the results. Not to mention the short shooting schedule. It certainly seems the case that less would have been so much more. Perhaps a pair of superheroes with a single trap, forced to debate the merits of saving civilians versus their own lives. Instead, we have a group of four running around a city, getting involved in uninteresting psychological games, with added flashbacks and rushed dialogue, all in a slim running time. The potential is certainly there, but sometimes limitations have to be adhered to.
ALL SUPERHEROES MUST DIE is released on DVD and Blu-ray on 7th October via Monster Pictures.
