Bill Skarsgård takes on the action genre in Boy Kills World a delightfully wicked revenge tale that’s as witty as it’s bloody.
When you hear the inner voice of Boy (played by Bill Skarsgård) the voice of legendary voice actor H. John Benjamin (Bob’s Burger) you’ll know if the wonderfully anarchistic Boy Kills World is for you. It’s the tonally perfect casting choice. It’s both a warning and an invitation to go down a rabbit hole of the unexpected and weird dystopian world created by Director Moritz Mohr and his collaborators in the story and screenplay Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers. Boy Kills World isn’t just a revenge film but an adroit play on the revenge film. One that is both a thrilling and (darkly) hilarious satire of the haves and have-nots that as thorny as anything in The Hunger Games.
The oft-told tale of a Boy trained by a sage shaman (Yayan Ruhian) to strike back at not only the ones that have killed his family but strike at the very system that placed the Van Der Koy family into power and remained there for thirty years. That system takes the form of a Ceral Company state-sponsored execution TV Special called The Culling.
However, this tale is smart enough to take anything traditional or cliché and bend it into something altogether different. Boy Kills World takes the conventions of the revenge thriller and purposely puts them on their head. Though never for too long. There isn’t a moment in the film that a bone-crushing gory action scene isn’t around the corner to kick you in the head. Even in its blood-soaked ending is smart enough to not do things as they’ve been done before – and is better off for it.
Boy Kills World stands above most action films because of the work between Director Mohr, and action and fight designer Dawid Szatarski. The secret is the action in the film builds on character rather than spectacle. One would think that this is an obvious notion but rarely outside Asian Genre Cinema does this occur. Szatarski and Mohr’s collaboration continually builds upon the setpiece before it until the moment of The Culling which unleashes some truly deranged and inventive action beats.
The other secret weapon of the film is a collaboration between actors Skarsgård and Ruhians. It isn’t just because Skarsgård worked 18 months and leaned out his body to Bruce Lee-style chiseled perfection or the fact that Ruhian is a masterful physical performer and has been since he rocked the world in The Raid. It’s because the two have chemistry as master and pupil and not a single line of dialog is spoken between them. It’s their first ten minutes that builds the foundation the film works on and returns to in its final act.
Skarsgård and Benjamin aren’t the only adroit casting choices that benefit the film. In fact, the film is a murder’s row of nimble performers all trying to top one another. Michelle Dockery, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, and Famke Janssen, who play the Van Der Koy family each deliver the kind of acidic broken-down familial pettiness that is as funny and toxic as anything you’ll see this year from a more “respectable” family drama. Copley and Gelman in particular seem to be in competition as to who can be the vilest man-baby ever to grace the silver screen. Dockery and Janssen actually do feel like sisters are equally matched as the hard-charging “producers”. Not to be outdone both Isaiah Mustafa and Andrew Koji bring a very different type of manic energy as revolutionaries that help Boy get his revenge. However, it’s Jessica Rothe who steals the show as the physically imposing Daft Punk-inspired assassin June27.
Boy Kill World isn’t destined just to be a Cult Classic, it’s destined to be an Action Classic, full stop.
Bill Skarsgård takes on the action genre in Boy Kills World a delightfully wicked revenge tale that’s as witty as it’s bloody.
When you hear the inner voice of Boy (played by Bill Skarsgård) the voice of legendary voice actor H. John Benjamin (Bob’s Burger) you’ll know if the wonderfully anarchistic Boy Kills World is for you. It’s the tonally perfect casting choice. It’s both a warning and an invitation to go down a rabbit hole of the unexpected and weird dystopian world created by Director Moritz Mohr and his collaborators in the story and screenplay Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers. Boy Kills World isn’t just a revenge film but an adroit play on the revenge film. One that is both a thrilling and (darkly) hilarious satire of the haves and have-nots that as thorny as anything in The Hunger Games.
The oft-told tale of a Boy trained by a sage shaman (Yayan Ruhian) to strike back at not only the ones that have killed his family but strike at the very system that placed the Van Der Koy family into power and remained there for thirty years. That system takes the form of a Ceral Company state-sponsored execution TV Special called The Culling.
However, this tale is smart enough to take anything traditional or cliché and bend it into something altogether different. Boy Kills World takes the conventions of the revenge thriller and purposely puts them on their head. Though never for too long. There isn’t a moment in the film that a bone-crushing gory action scene isn’t around the corner to kick you in the head. Even in its blood-soaked ending is smart enough to not do things as they’ve been done before – and is better off for it.
Boy Kills World stands above most action films because of the work between Director Mohr, and action and fight designer Dawid Szatarski. The secret is the action in the film builds on character rather than spectacle. One would think that this is an obvious notion but rarely outside Asian Genre Cinema does this occur. Szatarski and Mohr’s collaboration continually builds upon the setpiece before it until the moment of The Culling which unleashes some truly deranged and inventive action beats.
The other secret weapon of the film is a collaboration between actors Skarsgård and Ruhians. It isn’t just because Skarsgård worked 18 months and leaned out his body to Bruce Lee-style chiseled perfection or the fact that Ruhian is a masterful physical performer and has been since he rocked the world in The Raid. It’s because the two have chemistry as master and pupil and not a single line of dialog is spoken between them. It’s their first ten minutes that builds the foundation the film works on and returns to in its final act.
Skarsgård and Benjamin aren’t the only adroit casting choices that benefit the film. In fact, the film is a murder’s row of nimble performers all trying to top one another. Michelle Dockery, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, and Famke Janssen, who play the Van Der Koy family each deliver the kind of acidic broken-down familial pettiness that is as funny and toxic as anything you’ll see this year from a more “respectable” family drama. Copley and Gelman in particular seem to be in competition as to who can be the vilest man-baby ever to grace the silver screen. Dockery and Janssen actually do feel like sisters are equally matched as the hard-charging “producers”. Not to be outdone both Isaiah Mustafa and Andrew Koji bring a very different type of manic energy as revolutionaries that help Boy get his revenge. However, it’s Jessica Rothe who steals the show as the physically imposing Daft Punk-inspired assassin June27.
Boy Kill World isn’t destined just to be a Cult Classic, it’s destined to be an Action Classic, full stop.
Boy Kills World is only in theaters April 26th
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