This Steven Yeun-led action film is just under 90 minutes of flashy action and gore, and as long as you’re looking for nothing more, will provide sufficient distraction and entertainment.
The film’s capacity for increasingly silly ways for virally, violently uninhibited people to kill each other is its greatest strength. Everything else is a weakness. The writing is the exact style of awful that drove the reputation of 90’s comic books into the bin: underthought, edgy excess. Not the sort of writing that fades into the background and gets drowned out by the great action: the sort that constantly hammers in how bad it is with an unbearably indulgent premise coupled with a constant and invariably awful dialogue that screams “This is how I thought cool adults talked when I was twelve.”
The main character is as selfish and shallow as he is whiny and preachy. And no, not even a Steven Yeun performance can save this guy. The side characters are all varying shades of suspension-of-disbelief-shattering caricature.
Of course, there is a mood for this kind of thing. Depending on your tastes, Mayhem might be just what you’re looking for. Just know what you’re getting into: a vapid, cartoonish action fest.
Content warning: violence, gore, language, sexual content
Plot: 2
Characters: 0
Themes: 4
Spectacle: 8
Overall score: 50+ murder charges, getting off scot-free
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