Bill Skarsgård takes revenge into his own hands in the ultraviolent action-comedy-thriller Boy Kills World, which co-stars Michelle Dockery.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Not to be confused with the 1990s TV series “Boy Meets World,” “Boy Kills World” is a revenge fantasy set in a dystopian world not unlike the one in the American “The Hunger Games” series (in another related development, “Super Dragon Punch Force 3,” a videogame seen in the South Africa-shot film is currently being adapted as an animated TV series).
Produced by, among others, Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man”) and directed by Frankfurt-born, first-time feature filmmaker Moritz Mohr, “Boy Kills World” opens with a flashback to the murder of the protagonist’s family, including his beloved little sister Mina (Quinn Copeland), whose ageless ghost advises him. That protagonist is Boy. He is deaf, unable to speak, and has an interior voice (H. Jon Benjamin) borrowed from a video game. That voice is also (oddly) the film’s narrator.
The only survivor of the massacre of his family during a ritual known as “the Culling,” young Boy (Nicholas Crovetti, HBO’s “Big Little Lies”) is raised by an Asian ward/sensei/mentor known as Shaman (West Java martial artist and actor Yayan Ruhian). Shaman is a sort of a much meaner Yoda, who buries Boy in a shallow grave with a bamboo tube through which the boy can breathe and “eat stink bugs.” Later scenes feature a drug-tripping Boy seeing talking teeth. Take that, Luke Skywalker.
Boy grows up to be a trim and buff Swedish actor, Bill Skarsgård, better known as Pennywise of the “It” films. The adult Boy attends another “Culling,” during which a Van Der Koy family member named Glen Vad Der Koy (South African Sharlto Copley, briefly) suffers a terrible accident.
Pretending to be a chef, Boy sneaks into a Van Der Koy party, where he encounters “Star Wars” Storm Trooper-like fighters who are the pawns of the cruel, fascistic leader Hilda Van Der Koy (a not very scary Famke Jenssen). One of the troopers (Jessica Rothe, “Happy Death Day”) has a face shield that spells words and communicates with Boy.
Let the games and the bloodshed begin, which are extravagant and gruesome. Hilda’s daughter Melanie (Michelle Dockery, who seems to know this is a big mess) camps it up as the host of a TV show celebrating the Culling. A breakfast cereal sponsors the show and features dancing pirates and a hammer-wielding character named Gary the Goat, who turns out to be Boy’s cohort Basho (Andrew Koji) in a white shaggy costume. Also on Boy’s side is Bennie (Isaiah Mustafa), a Black warrior armed with a rifle, who speaks only gobbledygook and might be construed as a bit racist.
Action and fight design by multi-discipline specialist Dawid Szatarski (“Black Widow”) are wild, featuring bones snapping, blood spurting, all sorts of pierced bodies, and acrobatic action. Boy is decked out like his videogame avatar in a sleeveless, padded, blood-soaked, zip-up vest, cut-off pants, and trainers. Boy’s favorite weapon is a combination handgun/brass knuckles. Dockery does her best in the Stanley Tucci role. But she seems lost in this adolescent variation on a theme of vengeance against a brutal “dynasty” that appears suspiciously like a lame YA stand-in for one’s own family.
“Boy Kills World” is derivative and not especially good. The screenplay attributed to videogame veteran Tyler Burton Smith, Arend Remmers (TV’s “The Island”), and director Mohr features characters, especially the protagonist, who are hard to identify with. Director and co-writer Mohr could be a better storyteller. But the film has a unique pop-expressionist style, including colorful and imaginative visuals and a jaunty score by BAFTA-nominated composer Ludvig Forssell (“Belle”). They make “Boy Kills World” something more than just a knockoff of “The Hunger Games.” It might even be better than those films, including the recent dud reboot, although that isn’t much of a compliment.
‘Boy Kills World’
Rating: R for extreme bloody and gruesome images, profanity, drug use, and sexual references
Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Famke Jenssen, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Isaiah Mustafa
Director: Moritz Mohr
Writer: Tyler Burton Smith, Arend Remmers, and Mohr
Running time: 111 minutes
Where to watch: AMC Causeway, AMC South Bay, Apple Cinemas, and suburban theaters
Grade: B-
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