Revenge f lick looks great, just tune out the sound Review
Boy Kills World (R18, 111 mins) Directed by Moritz Mohr Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett **
Ican’t speak for the other cities in these fair motu, but back in “the day”, there were a few vacant warehouses not too far from Wellington’s city centre. And sometimes one of these bunkers would be used as a location for a massive dance party.
Back then, because all the fabulous teens and 20-somethings who lived in the city still had a bit of money left at the end of the week, even after we’d paid the rent and the bills, hundreds of us would pack out the space and spend the night bouncing off the walls to great music, while fog cannons and lights turned the room into a happy hellscape of thumping bass and smiley people.
Often, up behind the DJ booth, there would be a movie screen rigged, showing some demented martial-arts epic. The sound would be turned off, of course, but those wildly stylised fights, strung together with a bare minimum of nonaction scenes, always made for a pretty excellent visual installation.
And all I’m going to say about Boy Kills World is that if the economy falls to bits and a warehouse-rave scene should ever rise again from its ashes, then this film would be a great candidate for being projected on to one of those screens. But you should absolutely not take that as a recommendation to go to a cinema and watch the damn thing.
Director Moritz Mohr was clearly aiming here for the cartoonish-visuals-meets-bone-snapping-violence subversions of a Deadpool or a Kick-Ass. But that energy is a lot harder to conjure than it looks.
Boy Kills World is a hugely violent martial-arts revenge thriller – and star Bill Skarsgard has the abs and the moves to sell the stunts – but the jokes just don’t work and the incessant voice-over from Bob’s Burgers’ H. Jon Benjamin quickly becomes an irritation.
With Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey – No, really), Famke Janssen (GoldenEye) and Brett Gelman (Fleabag) in support, there was enough actual comedic firepower here to blow the roof off, if only the script had the smarts to give them the ammunition.
With tequila, friends and a really big screen, Boy Kills World would be a lot of fun to have playing at your place one night. Just remember to turn the sound off and put some decent music on first.
Boy Kills World is in select cinemas nationwide.