Metacritic reviews

It's got a little kick to it.

Produced and directed by Mark DiSalle, an alumnus of the Van Damme movies Kickboxer and Bloodsport, The Perfect Weapon moves well, and its many action and martial sequences are crisply staged. But unless you are a die-hard martial-arts fan, be prepared to be thoroughly bored by such a strictly by-the-numbers plot.

It's not perfect, but PERFECT WEAPON at least furnishes action aficionados with a hero who has a life beyond the floormat of a kung fu school. Speakman may augur a new breed of action hero--a 90s kind of fella who's survived both martial arts classes and sensitivity training sessions. Men will be enthusiastic over his fast footwork; women will be impressed by his ability to carry on an intelligent conversation.

The Perfect Weapon is functional, but as formula-bound as they come. [16 Mar 1991, p.C5]

This guy defines loner. He's on the outs with his father and kid brother, and the Koreans treat him like he's the Vanilla Ice of karate. Generation gap. Cultural gap. Logic gap. Weapon has more gaps than a cut-rate set of dentures. [19 Mar 1991, p.8D]

A macho fantasy of physical control, grace and invincibility in which women are all but absent.

During the fight scenes, it sounds as if a hundred watermelons were being clobbered at once. Other than that, it’s business as usual, with the all-American Speakman proving the most generic vigilante this genre has spawned yet.

We're subjected to 80 minutes of butt- kicking -- most of it contrived and flatly staged -- in Speakman's embarrassing debut, The Perfect Weapon. [19 Mar 1991, p.C5]

An action movie has to be taken on its own terms, and on its own terms The Perfect Weapon still amounts to a 90-minute bore. [16 Mar 1991, p.C3]

A karate movie so devoid of inner substance that it threatens to suck all known life on planet Earth into the void at its center. [20 Mar 1991]