From there, Guns Akimbo is a lightning-paced shoot-em-up, and on occasion can be a lot of fun. However, it is eye-roll-inducing at certain points in the dumb jokes it makes. The editing is not as precise as it could be, considering how fast everything happens. It’s also exceptionally derivative of most action movies that have come before it, but that can really be said for about 90% of action movies, so I don’t necessarily fault it for that.
“…eye-roll-inducing at certain points in the dumb jokes it makes.”
The positives are Rhys Darby as a homeless crackhead, which is a role I would never have imagined him playing, and Daniel Radcliffe‘s performance. Even though I found the entire production geared toward 20-something gamers, I felt myself caring about the journey Miles was on. I wish I would have liked Weaving’s character more, but she wasn’t written with as much dimension as Miles. She’s more of an archetype of a badass lady than a fully fleshed character. Then there is also Nova (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Miles’ ex-girlfriend, who gets kidnapped by Skizm. Writer-director Jason Lei Howden didn’t necessarily write her as a person but more as a plot device.
To be honest, the only fully-formed character in the whole movie is Miles. Everyone else sort of fits into typical action movie molds, and that’s where I was left disappointed. The villain, Riktor (Ned Dennehey), was cartoonishly evil with no real depth. Keep in mind all of this works for the type of movie that Howden was trying to make, which is a video game-style massacre for twenty-something gamers. This is just not my type of film, unfortunately, but I’m sure a lot of other people will love Guns Akimbo for that very reason.
"…has a Scott Pilgrim meets John Wick vibe..."
