It was only a couple of days ago that the first trailer for Guns Akimbo was released, and it was clearly decided that a mere two minutes were not enough to adequately convey the film’s sheer volume of unremitting chaos. As such, another is now available for your viewing pleasure, and looks even more glorious.
The plot sees waster Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) run afoul of SKIZM, a gang running a dark net site that livestreams urban gladiatorial death matches, and discovers his first battle is against the reigning champion Nix, played by Samara Weaving, who after this, Ready Or Not and Mayhem is fast establishing action credentials that should see her headline a new franchise in the imminent future if there’s any justice left in this hellhole of a world.
I have a theory that movies made in the style of video games, such as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, can be a lot better than those actually based on specific properties, and this continues to validate that, combining the ludicrous and over the top shoot-‘em-up gunplay of, well, Shoot ‘em Up with the hyper-violent insanity of Crank.
Director Jason Lei Howden’s first feature, the magnificent heavy metal Kiwi horror comedy Deathgasm, was a fun, hilarious and gory affair, and this looks to be a highly entertaining follow-up that should mark him as a name to watch.
One could argue that Guns Akimbo, even down to its simplistic title, is a comment on our society’s desensitized nature towards visual atrocity and willingness to lap up any suffering not being perpetrated upon us or anyone we know and like, but in reality, it’s more probably just a relentless and histrionic adrenaline rush of mindless violence hopped up on the fumes of Walter White’s lab, for which I, for one, can. Not. Wait.