Film Review: BOY KILLS WORLD (2023): Bill Skarsgård Turns in a Physically Challenging Performance in a Film Full of Mundane Violence

Boy Kills World Review

Boy Kills World (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Moritz Mohr, written by Tyler Burton Smith, Arend Remmers and Moritz Mohr and starring Bill Skarsgård, Famke Janssen, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Yayan Ruhian, Nicholas Crovetti, Cameron Crovetti, Quinn Copeland, Sharito Copley, Andrew Koji, Zainab Azizi, H. Jon Benjamin and Reza Brojerdi.

Boy Kills World is an overly violent, numbing miscalculation of an action picture. Everything about the movie feels wrong. For one, Bill Skarsgård shouldn’t be taking roles like this even though getting a leading role in an action movie sounds good on paper. Any other violent film premise may have worked better than the one employed in Boy Kills World. It’s a revenge story about the innocence of a brother and sister who bond while playing video games and, then, the brother has to live through one very violent video game, himself, in order to try to avenge the sister’s death. This analysis may not be 100 percent correct but it’s what I gathered from watching most of the movie which is directed by Moritz Mohr as if the film-maker is redefining the whole concept of the action film. He is, actually. He’s making it intolerable through absurdity.

Bill Skarsgård plays the “boy” referred to in the film’s title. He’s deaf and mute and we hear his thoughts through the voice of H. Jon Benjamin while Skarsgård’s mannerisms are odd and he sometimes moves his lips to match what Benjamin’s voice is saying. Boy needs to get revenge for the death of his little sister, Mina (Quinn Copeland in the best performance in the movie) who apparently died at the hands of some villains in an event called the Culling. Boy was raised by Shaman (Yayan Ruhian) who taught Boy to fight so one day he could get his vengeance for the wrong that was done to Boy and his family.

John Wick this is not. It’s too sloppy. Some of the characters look the same while others act like they’re doing their own thing with no apparent direction on how to play their roles. The voice-over narration is unfitting. It would have been better to not let Boy talk. Maybe. This whole concept needed to be rethought in order to achieve something which could result in viewer satisfaction. There are big ideas here but they are slimmed down to absurd and violent action sequences that do not satisfy the viewer. Instead, they may leave one scratching his or her head and wondering why all this violence is necessary in a movie masquerading as a picture highlighting the bond between a brother and a sister. The sister pops up in odd ways throughout as her ghost seems to inspire Boy in his endeavors.

The supporting cast is uniformly disappointing. Famke Janssen hams it up in a bad way in her part as the wicked and vicious Hilda Van Der Koy which is a role that the actress could have played in her sleep. Jessica Rothe, as a soldier called June27, is terribly miscast in a surprise role that probably sounded good on paper but plays rather awkwardly on-screen. The usually reliable Michelle Dockery is wasted in a pointless role as Melanie Van Der Koy, Hilda’s daughter. Sharito Copley and Brett Gelman falter in roles as a couple of other Van Der Koys in which the actors both underact and overact with tepid results all around.

To be fair, some people may enjoy Boy Kills World. In a time where senseless violence on-screen is something to be argued against or frowned upon, director Mohr doesn’t mean the movie to play as sadistically as it does or does he? There are some hidden messages in the film that may argue against the violence the movie portrays. But, does that justify the brutality that is displayed throughout the picture? I’m not sure.

For me, the narration of the Skarsgård character stripped the picture of the credibility I think it needed to be successful. Characters seem like one thing and then turn out to be another as the plot of the picture progresses too. Such surprises are usually welcomed but in this film, it ultimately makes the movie feel like it’s trying too hard. 

Skarsgård is a good actor in a movie that’s misguided by its own ambitions. Boy Kills World is an attention seeking picture that figures mindless action is the way to go to win over a viewer’s attention. John Wick was carefully constructed in a way that the movie felt like it was operating in an alternate reality that never felt close to the way real life is whereas Boy Kills World wants the audience to think it’s watching something out of a video game. Video games are, unfortunately, a part of reality and are played mainly by kids. Without getting into a debate about when a movie is too violent for its own good, Boy Kills World is most likely too violent for its own good.

Other cast members in this new film include Isaiah Mustafa and Andrew Koji as characters who are strategically placed in the story line to kick start the action. If you want to get into the concept of cinematic construction, Boy Kills World is probably technically proficient. It just tells a story that I had no interest in with actors who seem like they could do better work than they do in this film. If you love video games like Street Fighter, you may enjoy the movie but you’ll certainly hate yourself in the morning as the film lacks the appeal that is necessary to sustain a picture being classified as a good one.

Rating: 4.5/10

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