On May 16, the comedy action movie «Boy Kills World» starring Bill Skarsgard was released in cinemas. In the review below, we tell you why it’s better not to take your kids to the screening and how the former Pennywise looks like a muscular action hero.
Pluses:
good pacing; lots of bloody action, which is what movies are made for; good humor up to a point;
Minuses:
What is usually considered to be flaws (extreme absurdity, unreasonable cruelty for the sake of cruelty, general unpretentiousness, etc.) in films of this kind are attributes of the genre, so these disadvantages are purely conditional;
«Boy Kills World»
Genre comedy dystopian action movie
Director Moritz Mohr
Starring Bill Skashgård, Jessica Roth, Yayan Ruhian, Sharlto Copley, Michelle Dockery, Famke Janssen
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
The unnamed boy, who is the dude from the title, was unlucky enough to be born in dystopian Hell, a city ruled by the cruel Van Der Koy family, headed by their crazy Aunt Hilda. Once a year, these inhumans organize a show execution, including a bizarre television reality show, to keep power under their control, intimidate society, and destroy all dissenters. The family of the guy, or Boy, is also targeted: his mother and sister are killed by Hilda, and he becomes deaf and dumb.
But the boy manages to survive the tragedy, after which he finds himself under the tutelage of a mysterious Shaman, a martial arts master and hallucinogen addict. He begins to teach the boy sacred techniques of beating the nose and toughens his mind and body so that one day he can avenge the death of his family. Years pass, and the frail boy turns into a grown man with impressive muscles. Now he is ready to destroy those who ruined his life. Or at least he thinks he is.
«Boy Kills World», which is the feature debut of German director Moritz Mohr, with producer Sam Raimi (so that’s where the «rise from the grave» scene comes from), is a combination of comedy action movie and dystopian elements. «The Hunger Games» on minimums, multiplied by the hardcore «John Wick», whose aesthetics are more or less imitated by a bunch of action movies in recent years — from Netflix «Extraction» until the recent «Monkey Man». That is if we talk about the movie in normal human language. But it would be inappropriate here. This kind of rhetoric is much more authentic:
«Boy Kills World» — is one hundred percent ruthless and as senseless as possible, indescribably bloody and unpretentious bad taste with hyperbolic violence without brakes, which also tends to the beat ’em up video game style. No wonder the deaf and dumb Boy thinks in the voice he heard in his favorite arcade fighting game (the creators are assisted by the voiceover of American comedian Harry John Benjamin).
After a brief introduction to the characters, the plot takes us to the setting of the inhospitable jungle, where Mohr is engaged in caricatured vandalism. The ambitious fighter must go through many tests from his wise mentor to prepare for the battle of his life. This is how the boy becomes a man, or, to wink at the localizers, a Dude, albeit not as iconic as Lebowski, but ready for new achievements.
When it finally comes to the famous action game, you should immediately understand that Boy «is completing the» mission with cheats, because no firearm, even close-range shots, can match his unrivaled parkour.
Meanwhile, the hypertrophied brutality of the fight scenes is not supported by any kind of staging ingenuity; we have seen all these dynamic camera shots around the characters, bloody faces smashed to pieces, hundreds of extras and improvised killing tools many times before.
To keep up with his famous colleagues like Wick, who can beat a school textbook to death, the local action hero uses, for example, a kitchen grater. And in one of the scenes, a carrot suddenly appears straight out of the action movie «Shoot ‘Em Up», in short, clearly more inventive and banal than «Boy Kills World».
There is also a place for some fun, which is vital in a situation like this. Due to a childhood trauma, Boy is pretty much out of his mind, so at every opportunity he sees his little sister, which provokes funny situations. But this technique will work only until you personally want to do to the character what a dancing clown usually does to kids Pennywise.
Even before the climax, the filmmakers’ comedic fervor fades away, giving way to His Majesty the Twist and a serious battle with the final boss. The former is not so much a surprise as a dramatization of the plot, which is not very appropriate for such a movie. The latter appeals to the best examples of the slasher genre, and although the production is up to par, the fight is not that impressive.
Bill Skashgård fits well into the image of a silent action hero and, with an adequate plot, can count on the audience’s support (let’s hope that in the future «The Crow» and that’s how it’s going to be). Yayan Ruhian showed his stuff even before your junkies in «The Raid», and here he’s just doing his thing. There’s not much to say about the star of the comedy slasher «Happy Death Day», Jessica Roth, because she spends almost all of her time in a helmet. Famke Janssen came in for a coffee. At some point, a man from an Old Spice commercial appears in the frame.
«Boy Kills World» doesn’t shy away from the fact that it’s low-grade entertainment, a lighthearted laugh riot mixed with a senseless gore-fest. And this is exactly the case when this sounds like a compliment. So if you like this kind of pure, unencumbered by unnecessary thoughts leisure time at the screen, then, as they say, why not. If not — don’t go within a kilometer of this movie.
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