Boy Kills World
review by Bobby Blakey
The action genre opens so many chances to just cut loose and when handled well is some of the most exciting and entertaining cinema out there. The latest, Boy Kills World teams up director Moritz Mohr with Bill Skarsgård that looks to pull no punches and bring the chaotic fun for the fans. The film features a great supporting cast including Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Yayan Ruhian, with Andrew Koji, Sharlto Copley and Famke Janssen. Could this film live up to the hype of the trailer or will it fail to find its vengeance?
Boy Kills World follows "Boy" who vows revenge after his family is murdered by Hilda Van Der Koy, the deranged matriarch of a corrupt post-apocalyptic dynasty that left the boy orphaned, deaf and voiceless. Driven by his inner voice, one which he co-opted from his favorite childhood video game, Boy trains with a mysterious shaman to become an instrument of death and is set loose on the eve of the annual culling of dissidents. Bedlam ensues as Boy commits bloody martial arts mayhem, inciting a wrath of carnage and bloodletting. As he tries to get his bearings in this delirious realm, Boy soon falls in with a desperate resistance group, all the while bickering with the apparent ghost of his rebellious little sister.
This is one of those over-the-top insane flicks that brings everything to the table and smashes you in the face with much success. The story seems simple on the surface but takes some great turns in a much more creative direction that makes it a lot deeper than it might think. It wastes no time diving right into the action and serves quite a bit of training montages in the first act that are great fun, but that is only the tease to the chaos to come.
The strange future setting merges the ideas of The Purge and The Hunger Games to create the platform for insanity to feed off. Make no mistake, it is its own
original ideas but with familiar tones. They almost don’t even matter as it really is all about that crazy violence and well-executed fight sequences. They pull no punches quite literally letting the blood and bullets fly as bodies are decimated all around. You name it and they brought it into the mix for the fights including a cheese grader, flip flop and everything in between.
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The whole cast is great, but it’s Skarsgård leading the charge without ever muttering a word. The fun idea of him creating his own inner voice based on a video game is hilarious with the always awesome H. Jon Benjamin supplying the monologue. The always outstanding Yayan Ruhian brings the usual badass nature to the role as the perfect choice for the master role. He gets way more to do than I expected complete with plenty of time getting in on the action.
In addition to the action, I was surprised how funny it was too. The film brings it all and I think it is destined be become a cult classic. I loved this film and had a great time from start to finish. If I had any complaint about it there was a direction for the finale I was hoping for, but it went in a different way. It wasn’t bad mind you just had thought there was a better opportunity there to go all in. That is purely my own expectation and nothing to with the success of the overall film that is still fantastic.
Join the fight and check out Boy Kills World available now on On Demand and digital from Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions.