Okay, first Kickboxer wasn't great, but it was set in the 80s and everything had to be big and exagerated. The plot of this "remake" is almost the same, they tweak a couple things, but in the worst way possibile. So, firstly, in the original movie the protagonist's brother is ruthlessly made handicap in an unfair fight, so the protagonist (Van Damme) seek vengeance and trains after a thai master of martial arts. Well, here there is a FAIR match to the death where the protagonist's brother lose and gets killed. And of course it's bad, but the "antagonist" of this movie doesn't exactly live according to society's rules... He's kind of a master himself and has a whole school of disciples, he lives to fight and every fight is basically a survival situation. So the protagonist's brother knew that when he agreed to the match, EVERYONE KNEW WHO THIS GUY WAS, he is not an unnecessarily cruel bad guy like the one in the original movie! Unfortunately, since he is played by Bautista, which acting skills I presume are not very good, he only has like 4 lines of dialogue; still you kinda find yourself cheering for him instead for that douchy "american hero". Training montage was very dull. There's also a stupid object-woman, who is even a police officer. And yet her only job is to take the "hero" to Van Damme for his training. There is no morale, no soul and no logical plot whatsoever. Avoid this movie!
Review by LovesickDeadBlockedParent2022-08-17T21:09:55Z— updated 2022-11-04T12:25:25Z
Okay, first Kickboxer wasn't great, but it was set in the 80s and everything had to be big and exagerated.
The plot of this "remake" is almost the same, they tweak a couple things, but in the worst way possibile. So, firstly, in the original movie the protagonist's brother is ruthlessly made handicap in an unfair fight, so the protagonist (Van Damme) seek vengeance and trains after a thai master of martial arts. Well, here there is a FAIR match to the death where the protagonist's brother lose and gets killed. And of course it's bad, but the "antagonist" of this movie doesn't exactly live according to society's rules... He's kind of a master himself and has a whole school of disciples, he lives to fight and every fight is basically a survival situation. So the protagonist's brother knew that when he agreed to the match, EVERYONE KNEW WHO THIS GUY WAS, he is not an unnecessarily cruel bad guy like the one in the original movie! Unfortunately, since he is played by Bautista, which acting skills I presume are not very good, he only has like 4 lines of dialogue; still you kinda find yourself cheering for him instead for that douchy "american hero". Training montage was very dull.
There's also a stupid object-woman, who is even a police officer. And yet her only job is to take the "hero" to Van Damme for his training. There is no morale, no soul and no logical plot whatsoever.
Avoid this movie!