A boy whose family was murdered by the cruel rulers of his town is transformed into a killing machine by a mysterious shaman so that he can avenge his own people as an adult.
The “revenge film” genre will always be popular.
Its “caricatural and bloody” branch has been popular since the diptych Kill Bill, by Quentin Tarantino. Although much more burlesque, Boy Kills World is part of this movement, in addition to finding itself in the very niche category of “silent protagonist”.
Indeed, like Joel Kinnaman in Silent Night, by John Woo, Bill Skarsgård does not say a word in the first feature film by German director Moritz Mohr. The similarities end there, because in addition to being talkative, Boy Kills World does not have the same seriousness.
In an anonymous town, the Van Der Koy family keeps their totalitarian regime in place thanks to “carnage”, a televised event during which enemies of the clan are killed – consider The Hunger Games, but with cereal mascots (sponsors of the event). Boy’s mother and little sister (twins Nicholas and Cameron Crovetti, seen in Big Little Lies, then a more muscular Bill Skarsgård than in It) were murdered, but he survived. However, he left his speech and hearing there. Refugee in the jungle under the protection of a shaman (Yayan Ruhian) a reclusive martial arts master, the boy becomes a man whose sole objective is to exterminate the Van Der Koy matriarch, Hilda (Famke Janssen, the Jean Gray of the first trilogy X-Men).
Narrated by the enthusiastic inner voice that Boy has developed (H. Jon Benjamin, Archer, Bob’s Burgers), the story surprises with its twists and turns. The screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers still remains thin. We learn very little about this place dominated by the rather ridiculous members of a tyrannical family, who, in addition to killing its residents, reduces others to slavery. Cape Town, South Africa served as a filming location and provides a visually refreshing landscape for works of the genre.
Despite the originality of certain sequences and the quality of the choreography, the action becomes redundant. The severity of the injuries inflicted during the final confrontation should have ended the fight much sooner. We can partly forgive the excessive length of the violent scenes because of the brilliant plot of El Michels Affair, which will also be at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
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Action
Boy Kills World
(V.F.: Boy vs the world)
Moritz Mohr
With Bill Skarsgård, Michelle Dockery, Famke Janssen
1:55 a.m.