“Boy Kills World” takes the look and feel of your classic gorey comic book, and brings it to the big screen. The movie came to the theaters on April 26th, being the debut film of Mortiz Mohr. “Boy Kills World” leans heavily on its gruesome visuals and incredible fight choreography. The film uses a unique premise with allusions to dystopian films like “The Hungers Games;” however, most of the world-building is left up in the air, subsequently pushed aside for comedy fragments. Still, the movie is refreshingly different from many others from the same genre, making it a worthwhile joyride of guts and adrenaline.
[Spoilers ahead]
Taking place in a dystopian future, the world is ruled by tyrannical dictator, Hilda Van Der Koy, and the members of her family. In order to continue their rule of terror, the Van Der Koys maintain a tradition called “The Culling.” Here, the civilians are forced into a televised execution. Murdering innocents while sponsoring different companies, normalizing the senseless slaughter of innocents.
Taking the lead role is Bill Skarsgard, who is actually known mostly for his villain roles such as The Marquis in “John Wick Chapter 4” and Pennywise from “It”. In “Boy Kills World” however he takes the role as the rough protagonist, Boy. As a child, his family was subjected to The Culling where he lost his ability to hear and speak. Now training under a martial artist expert known as The Shaman, he has now become a killing machine, out for vengeance. Watching the trailer for the film I was skeptical about how they would portray a mute and deaf character. But after watching the film, I found that these traits were used well, for both emotional and comedic moments.
Having great fight choreography is a standard in the bloody action filmmaking scene. You want it to be captivating, realistic and most important of all, violent. “Boy Kills World” meets all of those expectations, and knocks them out of the park. With the use of steady camera work, well-put-together fight scenes and gruesome visual effects, the fight scenes have won themselves a rightful spot in my memory. The fights had a good balance of jaw-dropping movements and teeth-gritting gore. It was especially enticing to see the use of grappling, a style commonly overshadowed by more brute actions like punches and kicks.
In the end, “Boy Kills World” is a two-hour action-packed adventure that will leave you feeling fight or flight by the end of the film. If it wasn’t for the film’s lack of narrative storytelling and seemingly rushed ending, the film could have been an all-time classic. Plenty of comedy moments are used at the expense of important story-building moments. This is most noticeable in the last quarter of the movie, where it becomes strictly serious with little to no jokes made whatsoever. This sudden shift was very noticeable, even through all of the bloodshed that occurred during the movie’s final moments.
