Boy Kills World

 

“I am a weapon.”

Bloody, brutal and dizzying, Boy Kills World is a frenetic action-packed blood soaked thrill ride fuelled by revenge and revolution, that struggles to sustain its style with underlying substance due to narrative choices that feel added for shock value over storytelling cohesion, but that thankfully doesn’t distract from the fantastic action and absurdity which is sure to entertain. 

Discussion Points:

John Wick meets The Hunger Games meets The Purge - a tale of revenge in a dystopian autocracy full of commercialised killings. It feels like a live action video game meets anime, with its hyper stylised action, and its insane plot armour for its protagonist who should have definitely died multiple times from his injuries. Having H. Jon Benjamin voice the inner monologue of Boy is genuinely brilliant, and I personally found the humour way more hit than miss and his vocals paired with Bill Skarsgard’s mute performance worked perfectly. The rest of the cast is having a great time, and I found the film refreshingly self-aware of its tone and character. Until the final third act twist… which doesn’t ruin the film, but bumps it down a tier personally. It just feels so forced and unnecessary, adding an additional 25 minutes to the film causing it to overstay its welcome and become tiresome. I was frequently exhilarated during the action sequences with fantastic fight choreography and some brutal bloody blows. And even the final fight scene left me engaged purely through the creativity of the choreography, even if I wasn’t as invested in the story any longer. Ultimately, Boy Kills World is a fantastic action film, with some fantastic fight scenes, slick style and a fun premise, that struggles to land, but still greatly entertains.