Boy Kills World
ROADSIDEFLIXHot off the press from the Toronto Film Festival with strong momentum, director Moritz Moht’s film Boy Kills World reportedly arrives in a controversially different presentation to what gained strong ground alongside a different characterisation of voiceover for lead Bill Skarsgard. Nevertheless, the final product of Boy Kills World is an engaging and entertaining rollercoaster ride of thrilling action crafted with a compelling central performance from Bill Skarsgard.
The biggest detractors of Moht’s film will be its accusations of being derivative of the John Wick formula, and while those points are somewhat valid, how is anything meant to come out and find its own feet while being compared to what is arguably the greatest action spectacle of the last two decades? Comparisons aside, Boy Kills World does have its own visual style – one that feels unique itself and an element that the feature works to its distinctive advantage. The edit in itself is quite engaging and immersive, putting the viewer consistently (almost to a failure) amid calculated action chaos. The sense of violence and action feels both thunderous and intense, placing the viewer in almost a rag doll type of technique being thrown to and from the screen in the visually similar strike to the action set-pieces themselves. It’s an immersive and unique aspect of the production that flows extremely well in being effective but one that, before long, feels slightly repetitive in its conviction and execution as well as being slightly headache-inducing. Small issues aside, it does push a ginormous amount of personality and character into proceedings, and when each kick, punch, gunshot, and knife wound finds its target, the audience is surely to feel its weight.
Another simple yet effective surprise is the narrative. While Boy Kills World isn’t The Usual Suspects of screenwriting, it does land its mark and plays with its twist and turns to an engaging and unexpected degree. Aforementioned, this isn’t a game-changing experience with a genre-defined twist, but it subverts the expectations of its audience with a secondary layer that the film finds another gear to explore thematically and with depth regarding character arcs. What propels this later narrative device is the strong central performance of Bill Skarsgard but it’s ultimately a multifaceted response. One aspect of this production rests solely on his physicality and the other would be the characterisation of the central voiceover used, which has replaced Skarsgard with Family Guy alumni H. Jon Benjamin. Skarsgard, in effect, is used almost solely as a puppet of sorts, but one that showcases the actor’s great versatility of body image and personality through visual means without resting on dialogue or the screenplay to hide. The physicality the actor showcases not only in iconography but screen presence is superb, with terrific believability and conviction as an action star (equally exciting for his Crow remake) that puts little doubt inside the head of the audience to believe this character and his journey. The voiceover, however, is one that tonally shifts from one thing to something else entirely in context of going more comedic. The often deadpan delivery and tone of matter-of-fact plays well, but one that doesn’t elevate or immerse the material to any other degree than taking the level down to a place of more comedic and digestible substance. It doesn’t hinder or rock the boat completely, but when the context of the screen is violent and harrowing, to try and subvert such emotive material in comedic fashion has to be done with confidence; here, it feels ultimately like a dissonance to what wants to be achieved.
This brings into question other aspects of the production that don’t quite stick to the landing. The biggest culprit here is the pacing: it’s shockingly far too quick to indulge and witness the world-building and surrounding characters to absorb this universe and truly feel its effects. Granted, the initial emotive pull of a young child rescued from evil people after a family is slaughtered is one that doesn't need a greater degree of substance, but with the twists and turns the feature follows, being so one-note with its secondary characters is extremely detrimental to how hard said twists hit due to how unimportant it puts forward the significance of its reveals. Case in point is how little and underutilized Sharlto Copley, Famke Jensen and Jessica Rothe are throughout. Two of which are majorly important aspects of this narrative, and yet one is in three scenes and another is hidden for large parts in disguise. Small but ultimately integral aspects not involved or explored to the demands needed of this piece wanting to find substance and glee in its narrative but otherwise used as backdrops. This is a feature optioned throughout with Andrew Koji and Isaiah Mustafa popping up for momentary sequences but quickly dropping with little idea of how to progress with each arc or within the central narrative. It all feels like filler without further context to grow or give extended life to this world, which can only be referred to as unneeded blubber.
That being said, for action vehicles, Boy Kills World might have to wait to find its audience with streaming or on DVD but will undoubtedly do so with audiences that want to see dynamic and action utilised on screen. While it holds up for the most part with narrative, it can't be helped but said that with a little more streamlining and creative decisions, Moritz Moht’s film could have been an explosive action venture but as it stands strong within a long list of quirky and unique action spectacles.
