Boy Kills World review: "A gleefully bonkers blend of The Hunger Games and The Raid"
Apr. 22, 2024Bill kills in a Sam Raimi production that’s probably best partnered with a non-anatomical six-pack.
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Do the Skarsgård brothers share the same trainer? You have to wonder given Bill Skarsgård’s shredded physique in Moritz Mohr’s gonzo actioner, a muscular morphosis to match his older sibling Alexander’s uber-ripped build inThe Northman.
A gleefully bonkers blend ofThe Hunger GamesandThe Raid(one that features the latter’s martial arts maven Yayan Ruhian in a leading role), Boy Kills World centers on a deaf orphan on a one-man mission to avenge himself on the totalitarian regime he blames for offing his family. Skarsgård’s Boy lets his brawn do the talking – or he would, were his every move not accompanied by H. Jon Benjamin (of Bob’s Burgers fame) as an inner voice modeled on the narrator of Boy’s favorite childhood video game.
As that precis suggests, Boy Kills World is a film where anything pretty much goes. A live TV show where dissidents are executed by a breakfast cereal’s costumed mascots? Sure. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as a murderous enforcer? Hell, why not? Gory fight scenes utilizing everything from cheese graters to Gatling guns as weapons? Bring it on. And while we’re at it, let’s have a lip-reading gag involving a growling rebel (Isaiah Mustafa) whose every utterance Boy garbles into gibberish (‘Dodo buns!').
OK, so there does come a point when the wackiness gets wearying. Yet it’s hard to deny that Boy Kills World has a delirious, unhinged energy to it that’s not all that dissimilar to the John Wick franchise – a series Skarsgård exited, rather abruptly, at the end of itsfourth chapter.
Boy Kills World is in US theaters and UK cinemas on April 26.
Neil Smith is a freelance film critic who has written for several publications, including Total Film. His bylines can be found at the BBC, Film 4 Independent, Uncut Magazine, SFX Magazine, Heat Magazine, Popcorn, and more.
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