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I was looking forward to Boy Kills World. The trailer looked like good fun with great action.
Boy Kills World’s story is:
A fever dream action film that follows Boy, a deaf person with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, he is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.
It stars Bill Skarsgard, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Sharlto Copley, Famke Janssen, Yayan Ruhian, and the voice of H. Jon Benjamin. Benjamin was the voice of Yoda in the Family Guy Star Wars Specials, and he does have an epic voice.
The Story
Boy Kills World starts off with a sort of Hunger Games vibe. There is a Culling, where certain people are selected for execution against the ruling government, in this case Hilda Van Der Koy (Janssen). Young Boy’s family is selected and his mother and sister are killed.
Boy is rescued by the Shaman (Ruhian, who is the long haired guy from The Raid) and taught to kill. This way, he can get revenge on Hilda and her controlling family.
As Boy (now played by Skarsgard) grows up, he becomes the ultimate fighting machine. He is deaf and mute, but the voiceover in his head (Benjamin) tells his story. He’s forgotten what his own voice sounds like, so he remembers it from a Street Fighter-type arcade machine.
He starts to seek revenge and avenge his mother and sister’s deaths. This is where the fun begins. Along the way, he has the memory of his little sister to help, and distract, him.
The Action
The action in Boy Kills World is hit and miss in my opinion. Some of the stunts are epic and there are a couple of “Holy Shit” moments, the cheese grater in the armpit was one.
All the stunt guys deserve a lot of respect for what they did.
It’s the director, Moritz Mohr, who lets it down. Most of the time, the action works but there are a lot of times it doesn’t. It’s either too over the top or you can’t see exactly what’s going on.
I need to compare it to two movies, John Wick and The Raid.
Both John Wick and The Raid do the action perfectly. There are long takes, shots from further away and there’s nothing overly fancy about the camerawork.
The directors let the stuntmen do what they do. Both movies are excellent action flicks with amazing fight scenes.
In Boy Kills World, it’s just not hitting the spot most of the time. Some of the shots go up and over the stunt guys and just made me laugh or roll my eyes.
The Comedy
As I said, Benjamin’s voice is epic and his comic timing is perfect in places. There are moments where I really laughed at the little quips that were going on in Boy’s head, “Player one wins!” and so forth.
Since Boy is deaf and mute, he can basically sign and read lips. When he meets Bennie (Mustafa), he has a big beard and Boy can’t read his lips. Bennie, and another character hatch a plan, but Boy has no idea what’s going on, all he understood was “Dodo buns”.
The voiceover reminded me a little of Deadpool. Boy’s voiceover is talking to us, so breaking the fourth wall, but not as obvious as Deadpool. Again, there were moments when I really laughed.
The Third Act
I’m not going to spoil the end of the movie, but the third act was pretty bad. There is a cliched ending to the movie, a twist that has been done a thousand times already.
This annoyed me to be honest, for two reasons.
One, it was so cliché my eyes rolled back into my head so far I could see my own arse. Two, it took a really serious tone with the last act.
When the “reveal” happens, everything gets very serious, the voiceover stops and it just shifted tone and direction.
By the time the final fight happens, I had lost all interest in Boy and his search for vengeance, I just wasn’t interested. In John Wick, it’s about revenge, pure and simple. Someone takes John’s car and kills his dog, he goes after them.
There’s no twist at the end, the guy he’s trying to kill isn’t his father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate. It’s about one man after one man, the end.
Boy Kills World the ending is, as I say, cliched and just ruined it for me. Also, I know I moan about 90-minute movies, but this was 20 minutes too long.
Overall
This was a decent movie, with great action, funny and a good story, right up until the last 30 minutes. A real shame.
Boy Kills World isn’t a movie I would watch again, well, maybe on in the background or having drinks with friends, but that’s about it. It’s on rental from Amazon in the US at the moment.
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