Directed By Moritz Mohr

Starring – Bill Skarsgard, Famke Janssen, Jessica Rothe

The Plot – A fever dream action film that follows Boy (Skarsgard), a deaf person with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, he is trained by a mysterious shaman (Yayan Ruhian) to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.

Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, adult language, some drug use and sexual references

Boy Kills World | Official Trailer | In theaters April 26 (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

For everything that “Boy Kills World” lacks in the originality of its structural outline, while inside of a typical revenge narrative, it more than makes up for with gritty, gaping violence of the most expressive variety, as well as a campy over-the-top and exaggerated emphasis to its personality that makes it so indulging for action enthusiasts. Considering this is an original property that isn’t adaptated from a comic book or video game, it very much feels plucked from those respective art forms, giving the experience a rich indulgence that pays off in spades for both humor and horror, all without the appeal of one drastically taking away from the other, instead working together as an enhancer for each, in order to land even grander impacts to the stakes that couldn’t be bigger. In terms of the action, the documentation does leave more to be desired, but the crisply cunning and unforgiving nature of the choreography, while inside various set designs with a surprising element of tangibility to the weapons that Boy continuously executes with, does take ample advantage of the intended R-rating, but with an evolving creativity each time that makes the abundance of deaths feel original with each untimely dismissal. While the fights themselves are full of the kind of urgency and vulnerability that extends their appeal, the overhanging humor serves as a devilishly delightful treat to the chaos, especially while wrapped inside of a jovial upbeat score from Ludvig Forssell that stirs quite a scintillating contrast to what we’re being show in gruesome visuals. In terms of that humor, the script continuously utilized the realities of the protagonist’s audible handicap, with overhead narration that remains alongside him for a majority of the engagement, and while narration is typically something that annoys me as a tool for hand-fisted exposition, here it serves as a conscience to Boy in ways that vividly bring to life such a unique personality, in turn landing several intended deliveries in pay-off gags that serve as a result between the palpable chemistry between Skarsgard on-screen and “Bob’s Burgers” own H. Jon Benjamin, towards making them feel like the same contained entity. While Benjamin’s deliveries are occasionally eccentric, it forces Skarsgard to emulate it with a mirrored intensity in body language that serves up quite a hilarious contrast to the viscerality he continuously dishes up in the character’s vengeance, and while the fear of a muted protagonist did initially concern me with the lack of depth that we possibly couldn’t learn about his character, Benjamin’s capacities give the character far more heart and even bumbling buffoonery than I could’ve ever expected, rounding out a badass protagonist who feels human above all other distinguishing aspects. Aside from this dynamic duo, Michelle Dockery also turns in a memorable performance of maniacal exhillarance, despite such a one-dimensional antagonist outline, and comedian Brett Gelman uses his caustic wit and candor to steal a few scenes along the way, providing observational humor so intentionally blunt and on-the-nose that he might as well of done it with a ballpoint hammer. In terms of the story and overall pacing, there’s very little special about the initial building blocks of this Boy’s search for vigilante justice, but that simplicity is what allows Mohr to leave more time and dedication to the aforementioned physical conflicts, riding a wave of easy-going transition throughout the pacing of the movie’s first half that floated by effortlessly. In fact, some of these pocketed conflicts inside of this essential rivalry are so condensed and spontaneously handled that it added an element of unpredictability to the foundation that made it difficult to comprehend when a character would meet their untimely demise, especially with as many as five different antagonists wrapped inside of Boy’s quest for vengeance from a past that still haunts him.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, “Boy Kills World” is a victim of its own success, primarily with consequential blunders in both presentation and storytelling that removed quite a bit of wind from the sales of an experience that really only demanded to be fun. Despite much praise being given to the highly impactful and unforgiving elements of the movie’s fight sequences, they’re shot with an element of Matthew Vaughn surveillancing that continuously shifts and distorts the detectability of what’s visually being shown on-screen, in turn resulting in a few underwhelming pay-offs that are so sloppily presented that they take a little more imagination than necessary to capably fill in the blanks with what we’re being shown. Between some of the worst shaking camera capsulation and trigger happy editing schemes, the intensity of the action is very rarely met with the kind of control that knows when to resist on outsider’s influence, serving as an even greater calling card to the aforementioned Vaughn, who somehow pulls this off without costing himself the intergrity and palpable tension of every sequence he shoots. In addition to jarring captivity, the storytelling is rarely any better, with an off-the-rails third act involving two out-of-nowhere and unnecessary plot twists that completely wiped momentum from the film’s most distinguishing trait; its personality. While I did accurately and unfortunately predict one of these two twists, the way it’s accomplished is clumsy and convoluted in its long-winded exposition dump, with only twenty minutes remaining in the film, inspiring a tonal trade-up to drama that robbed it of the ingredients that made it stand out from so many conventional action films that feel interchangable in plot alone. To be fair, the film does attempt to be humorous a couple of times during the climatic final battle, but it almost feels like the material has lost confidence in itself because the punchlines don’t land as prominently, and as a result I found myself checking my watch for the first time in the engagement, especially since it basically just becomes another generic action flick, once it runs out of gas to cross the finish line. Finally, while the characterization of Boy is intentionally limited in its potential by a deaf framing device that offers him little opportunity to interact with various characters and predicaments, I found the antagonists to be even worse, especially since our committed following to Boy offers none of them the kind of opportunity to ever make the roles their own. The loudest and most obvious example of this is Janssen, who goes virtually wasted as the film’s primary antagonist, which feels even more tragic when the film casually reaches for certain evolutions with her character that feel emotionally weightless, considering we’ve learned absolutely nothing about her along the way, besides she’s a maniacal dictator. If the script spent even a little bit of time building any of them, then maybe it wouldn’t feel as easy as a knife cutting through butter, each time Boy comes across them, and in turn could’ve cemented some integral tension for the magnitude of his mission, which can never escape inevitability. Even the world-building of this unique place is only ever approached at a surface level, with a Hunger Games event that just sort of exists to move the plot along, without answering any dire questions about its inception, leaving it and the characters enveloped in it, plagued by the kind of hollow outlines that make this feel like Netflix quality of storytelling.

OVERALL
“Boy Kills World” is an uproarious good time, full of exaggerated humor and unforgiving brutality for anyone thirsty for brainless action indulgence. While initially prominent as a gritty B-movie revenge flick and nothing more, it nearly sinks under the weight of its own creative ambition during a clumsily convoluted third act, full of unnecessary twists and violent tonal shifts that make this feel like an entirely different movie all together, instead of the film that once refused to take itself too seriously.

My Grade: 6/10 or C