1
0
Upon first viewing of the initial trailer for the new dystopian action-thriller Boy Kills World, one pretty much knew what they were getting themselves in for if choosing to watch the film upon release. The red band trailer was filled with ecstatic, over the top violence and humor that seemed to defy all genres in its execution of being one of the most absurd and politically incorrect action spectacles ever released. The question was, however, could the film live up to the hype? The answer…
I’m still trying to figure out what I just saw, but I’ll tell you if you want to know my opinion. Bill Skarsgård and company have indeed delivered an enigma in storytelling gift wrapped with the most chaotic and savage set pieces you just might see this year. Is it perfect? No. Far from it but even with its standard flaws, including failed attempts at levity, some quick and shaky camera work during the bloodletting and, at its core, a standard revenge plot trope, Boy Kills World is still a sight to behold as the cast are all in and they exuberantly wink at the audience while showcasing the shenanigans for all to see.
Like I said, main plot is standard fare, and it concerns our hero, known only as Boy, who navigates a dystopian world that is run with a vintage, and sadistic iron grip courtesy of Hilda Van Der Coy (Famke Janssen) and her deranged family including her brother Gideon (Brett Gelman), her sister Melanie (Michelle Dockery) and Melanie’s showboat pony of a husband Glen, played by the always game Sharlto Copley. Unfortunately, for Boy, every year Hilda runs what she calls The Culling where she executes on live TV those who she deems troublesome and one year, Boy’s mother and little sister are victims of the annual bloodletting.
Fortunately for Boy, or unfortunately however you see it, he is taken in by the Shaman, played to perfection by The Raid’s Yayan Ruhian. I say maybe unfortunately, because Boy is not only trained by Shaman to eventually execute his kill mission, but he does it by abusing him to the extremes. I forgot to mention that Boy has been rendered mute and deaf from the event that took his family, so he communicates to the audience by using the voiceover of his favorite arcade game Super Dragon Punch Force 3 which I hear has it release date day and date with the film and will even be an animated series. This gimmick might not gel with mainstream audiences but for those of us in on the joke, it works and serves up a fair amount of the film’s levity. The voice is courtesy of Bob’s Burgers’ H. Jon Benjamin and if you grew up in the 80’s like me and witnessed these types of games, Benjamin executed it to near perfection almost teleporting me back to that decade.
One day, while at the market with Shaman, Boy witnesses brutal killings by Glen and Hilda’s soldiers and breaks away from Shaman, thus initiating his mission of vengeance a little earlier than planned. What follows is a crescendo of savagery that assaults the senses of the viewers as Boy carves a blood-soaked path through a gauntlet of soldiers and enemy combatants.
Boy does team up with local resistance fighters Basho (the great Andrew Koji) and Bennie (Isiah Mustafa). This trio of vengeance seekers is hardly a holy Trinity, but they might just be crazy and lucky enough to complete their mission and assassinate Hilda and all who stand in their way.
Boy Kills World has a large hurtle to overcome at the box office as it’s not for everyone and is hyper-violent throughout. Sam Raimi helped produce the movie and with it he brings the chaotic and almost cartoonish violence that he used in The Evil Dead movies with him. It’s almost hysterical at many points just how violent this one gets but it should satisfy fans that favor their action with a super strong helping of barbaric bloodshed. This film is even more violent than an extreme zombie flick in some instances and I…well…enjoyed the hell out it from opening title shot to rolling end credits.
Director Moritz Mohr (Akumi, Ronin 2035) is most assuredly a massive fan of breakneck martial arts pummeling on screen, and he pulls out all the stops in the numerous set pieces that fill the length of the flick. To aid him in the action department, Moritz enlisted Dawid Szatarski as action designer and with his team of stunt pros over at Team Berlin, Szatarski essentially grabbed the keys from Moritz and proceeded to run amok with ideas and moves that paid blood-soaked homage to films like The Raid and pretty much any insane output from Indonesia. Having Ruhian as one of your top participants definitely gives the audience a feeling that they are watching a film from that part of Asia and while it never truly reaches the heights of those earlier films, it sure does strap on the seatbelt and give it the good old college try with bombastic and sweat soaked results.
The world where Boy lives in is an abstract dystopian one and viewers could make the argument that it’s a future world besieged by evil after the apocalypse or simply a 3rd world country that suffers this kind of death and torment on a daily basis. It’s never really clear where we are for all the action but leaving it to the audience is just fine as Moritz wants you to focus on other things like the over-the-top characters and even more over the top action. It’s got a The Purge tinge to it as every year on the same day, death comes calling to those less fortunate. While The Culling never goes full on kill mode like The Purge, it’s still heartbreaking to see innocent civilians trying to live in this insane world, suffer even more at the hands of the Van Der Koys. The imagery and cinematography have the look and feel of so many other films before it, but it serves its purpose her with the desired results.
The cast led by Skarsgård are all in here with Sharlto Copely chewing up his scenes for the short length that he’s seen. Copley plays Glen, the husband of Michelle, as energetic and sadistic as always and is even treated as the family puppet giving him a rather comedic nickname in the process. Famke Janssen is more of an extended cameo as the head evil queen Hilda but once she enters the film, she brings the sheer icy aesthetic that you expect from this character. Michelle Dockery is the real puppet master behind the whole sadistic show as Hilda’s sister Melanie and she makes no qualms about who’s in charge. I mean, after all, do you know how hard it is to get televised mass murder sponsored by a cereal company? Brett Gelman is Hilda’s brother Gideon and he’s pretty much fed up with all things Culling leading to a Shakespearian mutiny in the third act.
Jessica Rothe is beyond solid as the Van Der Koy’s lethal killing machine June27 and while her character is a little underused for the first two/thirds of the film, she finally makes her presence felt in a hail of blistering fisticuffs leading up to a massive plot twist that connects her to Boy. June27 mostly is masked by a helmet that digitally talks for her and it works as an intimidation piece for those she’s about to kill and serves up even more bizarre visuals for the movie.
The real stars of the movie along with Skarsgård are resistance fighters Bennie and Basho played by Isaiah Mustafa and Andrew Koji respectively. Their characters lead to a lot of the humor as Boy can only read lips with Bennie speaking another language so when he talks all you hear is gibberish. It’s one of the humor elements that work, and it must have been fun for Mustafa to utter nothing coherent at all. Koji is and will always be one of the most underappreciated action stars today and here as Basho he gives us his wackiest character yet with Koji going headfirst into his animated performance. I always complained that he was underutilized in Bullet Train and while he gets more to do here in the action department, I was still left with wanting more from him physically. He does get to go into complete berserker mode though which is always a welcome site.
Yayan Ruhian is definitely not a mainstream star but the import from Indonesia is stellar as the Shaman and his character has one of the best arcs throughout the picture. Shaman is cruel, sadistic and his training of Boy would probably kill anyone else that tried. I was pleased to see Ruhian get a large role here and I will say that fight film fans will not be disappointed in his beatdown in the finale.
Make no mistake. This is Bill Skarsgård’s world here and we are all just living in it. With this movie and the upcoming The Crow, Skarsgård is truly making a name for himself in action cinema. Skarsgård certainly put the work in here transforming his body into a lethal weapon and you can tell that he’s doing most of the fighting in his scenes. It must have been great for Skarsgård in that he didn’t have to learn a lick of dialogue as the arcade fighting game voice does it all for him. Visually, Skarsgård is the real deal here and he is able to act the hell out of his performance with his facial expressions and body movements which is even harder to do than speaking lines. He looks sensational in the adrenaline department and hopefully he adds more fight flicks to his filmography arsenal in the future.
The biggest failure for Boy Kills World is the uneven humor which will fall flat in the eyes of many. I did chuckle a few times and even knew where they were going with it but unfortunately, it just doesn’t work most of the time leading to what will be an uneven viewing experience for a lot of people. This film was going for a RoboCop vibe with its subject material and social satire, but it just doesn’t gel throughout. I will say that H. Jon Benjamin’s voiceover work is one of the highlights of the pic and it evokes the most laughs upon viewing.
What saves Boy Kills World is the action and the insane amount of bloodshed that envelopes the running time. The sequences of carnage are hyper-kinetic, hyper-violent and hyper-enjoyable with equal parts bullet riddled mayhem and hand to hand mastery infused with bladed weaponry greatness. The action design is exactly what I was hoping for and even with some questionable camera shots, editing choices and close ups, Moritz still shows respect for fans of punishment on screen and is victorious more times than not. The insane and unadulterated sequences are virtually non-stop, and the finale is a culmination of it all. A standout scene has Boy taking on one of Van Der Koy’s soldiers (played by Szatarski himself) and it is a sheer classic and homage to the Black Knight scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. It’s totally ridiculous and in any other movie would have been a train wreck but here it’s business as usual. The choreography compliments Hong Kong style theatrics as well as Indonesia’s deadly Silat discipline along with Kali and Escrima flair showcasing the brutality of advanced knife skills and other bladed weapons coupled with tight, frenetic CQB style kills and fans will definitely get their fill of the savage science. The bloodshed is pretty much cartoonish and gonzo in its execution like I said but there are a few moments where even I cringed just a little but still smirked at the audacity of it all.
The plot is standard vengeance seeking fair but there is a nice twist that is revealed in the third act giving it a deliciously Shakespearian flavor to it all and it’s this twist that has Boy Kills World rise above other standard fair. I must admit that I did piece it together as the film went on, but it was still satisfying, and it raised the stakes for Boy even more leading to the finale where he takes on Ruhian with a little help from another character that I won’t spoil. The last battle is worth the price of admission alone and I like how Moritz utilized his slo-mo effects giving the moves an even deadlier slice of execution. It’s an extended fight scene that you just don’t see in western films these days and it’s exhausting and blood drenched on many levels with some of the best action design of the whole flick. this might be the best throwdown I’ve seen Ruhian manhandle and that even includes the ferocity he put on display during his involvement in The Raid films. The man flat out brings it with tier one results!
Overall, even with the failed attempts at unapologetic humor, Boy Kills World is still an innovative and brutal, blunt force assault on the senses that will invoke one of the most original viewing experiences one will have this year. Bill proves that with the right team behind him, he has the makings of being an elite action star if he wants to be. He’s got the looks, the acting chops and physical stamina to pull it off. I’m excited to see what he brings to The Crow in August. The rest of the cast is clearly having fun with the absurdity of it all and Yayan Ruhian is used to his ability unlike his Raid cohort Iko Uwais in so many of his western films.
The action and mayhem are hyper surrealistic, and the choreography gives western audiences a sampling of what action genre fans have known for decades and that’s Asia and the east are tops when it comes to action design. The violence is pedal to the metal with some truly imaginative kills and executions ever put on film and it gets so over the top that you can’t help but grin mischievously. The satire is hit or miss but it didn’t dampen any of the experience for me and the set pieces saved it all at the end of the day. It’s a shame that this film will probably not score with mainstream audiences, but I can see it achieving cult status in the future with midnight showings at your local theater where people dress up like the characters in the film. It’s completely barbaric, savage, insane and batshit crazy and I was on board the whole way home.
VERDICT: 4 Out of 5 Stars
Bill Skarsgård kills it (pun intended), and the cast are all in for one of the bloodiest crescendos of hyper-action and hyper-violence you will see in theaters this year!
