Today’s action films just aren’t fun anymore. With the exception of a select few, most action thrillers drown in an excess of preposterously over-the-top moments that make them hard to enjoy. Existing in the tired world of video game-inspired action, Moritz Mohr’s Boy Kills World is a stupid and tasteless barrage of noise, bad humor, and (ultra)violence. 

Buffed up like brother Alexander, Bill Skarsgård plays a man named Boy, who is on a life’s mission of revenge against Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), the evil dictator of a post-apocalyptic world. When he was young, Van Der Koy killed our hero’s family in an annually televised event known as The Culling, where innocents are executed for high ratings and to satisfy viewers’ bloodlust. After being orphaned, Boy was raised by a mystic Asian shaman (Yayan Ruhian), who trained him in preparation for his quest of vengeance. No longer a child, Boy is ready for his mission and sets out to spill blood. 

In one of an astounding number of failed attempts at being clever, Boy is mute and his inner thoughts are voiced by H. Jon Benjamin (Bob in Bob’s Burgers). Benjamin’s deadpan delivery has always served him well, but screenwriters Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers give him no interesting lines. The voice actor is just used to cash in on his signature vocal stylings and is left with nothing to do. 

As for the supporting cast, Michelle Dockery lowers her standards, Brent Gelman yells as he always does, Andrew Koji yells too, and it’s past time to admit that Sharlto Copley just isn’t a good actor. Only Jessica Rothe is allowed something interesting in her character’s design, but it fades quickly. 

Dawid Szatarski’s uninspired fight choreography is supremely dull. Every move has no flare and fights such as these have been done better and tougher in many other films. Szatarski gives himself the most ridiculous fight that becomes an outlandishly vicious homage to the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but even that glimmer of fun ends up falling flat. In a failed attempt to add “oomph”, cinematographer Peter Matjasko speeds up the action during every fight, as director Mohr knows how boring they would look without any help from the camera. 

The screenplay for Boy Kills World is an unholy mess of spilled genres. Dark comedy, Science Fiction, Martial Arts, and comic book violence all collide in an explosion of failure. Even the dumb final twist has no impact thanks to the lack of any real imagination amongst the filmmakers. 

Mohr’s teenage-boy direction has no originality and pleads for the audience to see it as an underdog. A film finds cult status organically, through word of mouth. The director seems to be actively trying for cult status, which proves he has no faith in his own creation and no interest in originality. There is no real talent involved in the creation of this idiotic monstrosity, just an overall laziness and the director knows it. The entire exercise is a Hail Mary pass to gamer junkies with no attention spans. 

Rip-offs of John Wick, The Raid, Battle Royale, Deadpool, The Hunger Games, Mortal Kombat, Kill Bill, Star Wars, and The Running Man make up this quilt of the uninspired. Make no mistake, these are not homages. Boy Kills World is nothing more than a juvenile cinematic theft of better films. Don’t fall for it.

Boy Kills World

Written by Tyler Burton Smith, Arend Remmers, & Moritz Mohr

Directed by Moritz Mohr

Starring Bill Skarsgård, Famke Janssen, Jessica Rothe, Bill Gelman, Michelle Dockery, Sharlto Copley, Andrew Koji, H. Jon Benjamin

R, 115 Minutes, Lionsgate, Raimi Productions, RoadsideFlix