The Boy in the Very Red Pyjamas

The premise of Boy Kills World is both entirely familiar and also somewhat unique. You've seen "man goes on a murderous rampage of revenge" about a dozen times at this point right? What about "deaf/mute man raised by a forest shaman goes on a murderous rampage of revenge in a near future dystopia with a video game aesthetic"? Maybe not so much.

Well thats what's on the table here. Bill Skarsgard saw his family killed by Hilda Van Der Koy and has been living with "The Shaman" in the years since. The Shaman isn't big on affection, solely focusing on raising the boy to be a killing machine and given he is played by Yayan Ruhain of The Raid fame you know he is teaching the kid to be badass. Meanwhile, Hilda (Famke Janssen) and her family have been busy running the unnamed city as a consumerist dystopia with the highlight of the year being an event called "The Culling", where twelve enemies of the state are killed in a violent TV programme with mascots and family themed commercial sponsorship. When Boy (Skarsgard's character is never given a name) witnesses people being rounded up for the big event he decides it's time to begin his bloody quest for vengeance.

We are guided through the story by Boy's inner monologue and conversations he has with a vision of his dead sister but given he doesn't know what his own voice would sound like the lines are delivered by the smooth tones of the announcer from his favourite childhood arcade game. Said voice belongs to Harry Jon Benjamin in a choice that fits the tone perfectly but may be a little distracting to Bob's Burgers fans. The arcade game influence carries over to the aesthetic with the Van Der Koy soldiers dressed like they stepped out of a first person shooter, bright colours and over the top violence that's as cartoonish as it is visceral. Sam Rami is a producer and this is the second year in a row he has overseen a movie with some gnarly cheese-grater action. Director Moritz Mohr is making his feature film debut and he handles the action with aplomb, serving up stylised fight scenes that are inventive and bone crunching, although the constantly swooping and circling camera can be taxing.

It's just as well the action sections are good since, while there is humour, plot twists and a little message about the futility of revenge, Boy Kills World is really just a procession of escalating fight scenes. The revenge action thriller is a pretty crowded genre these days and this effort doesn't quite have enough in the tank to stand with the absolute best in class but it does have enough style and individuality to stand on its own.

7 finish him's out of 10.

Comments

You Must Walk 500 Miles

As far as descriptive titles go, The Long Walk nails it. In an undefined near future, a bunch of teenage boys compete to see who can walk the farthest, with riches and a wish of their choice the reward for the last one standing. The catch? There is only one winner and if you stop, or drop below the allotted 3-mile-an-hour pace, you get shot. As if that wasn't bad enough, they have to march under the watchful eye of Mark Hamill's "Major", a military hard ass who, in the time-honoured tradition of old men sending young men to their deaths, constantly barks platitudes about how brave and noble the competitors are while clearly not giving a toss about them. Given the nature of the film, it's something of an ensemble piece, with a glut of young actors you'll recognise, but the main focus is on Ray (Cooper Hoffman) and Pete (David Jonsson). While a level of camaraderie emerges between many of the boys, it is the friendship between these two that forms the core of ...

Man About Town

Caught Stealing is not your typical Darren Aronofsky film. More playful and less mired misery, it feels like the director having a stab at a Guy Ritchie-esque caper around late 90's Manhattan. For the most part, it works. Austin Butler is Henry "Hank" Thompson, a New York bartender and former baseball prodigy. When he and girlfriend Yvonne (Zoe Kravitz) are asked to keep an eye on Hank's neighbours cat, they end up in the crosshairs of Russian gangsters, Yiddish hitmen and "concerned" cops. This may be more playful in tone than his usual fare, but this is still an Aronofsky film, so Hank is a man with an obsession, in this case baseball. His devotion to his beloved San Francisco Giants dictates his mood and is the foundation of his relationship with his equally obsessed mother, whom he calls every day to discuss their prospects with. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm is intrinsically linked to his own cut-short ball career and the ghost of what could have been...

Weightwatchers Extreme

The Cut is a boxing movie with (apart from a brief opening sequence) no boxing in it. Instead it focuses on the equally brutal, but less visibly part of the sport, weight loss, as a former contender spirals into madness while trying to shed an insane amount of heft in order to secure a last minute return to the big time. Orlando Bloom is a boxer (he is never named during the film) who lost his one title shot and now runs a gym with his partner and trainer Caitlin (Catriona Balfe). He retains a reputation for being an exciting knockout specialist so when a title contender dies weeks before an upcoming Las Vegas showdown, scary promoter Donny (Gary Beadle) offers him the chance of a glamorous comeback. The catch? He needs to shed thirty two pounds (over two stone or fourteen kilos) in a week. Caitlin agrees to him giving it a go provided they do things by the book, but when traditional methods fail, John Turturro's Boz enters the equation and pushes Bloom way beyond the bounds of w...

The Family That Fights Ghosts Together..

The Conjuring: Last Rites is the fourth instalment in the blockbuster horror franchise and picks up five years after the previous entry, with Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) now retired from the paranormal investigation game. When a spooky mirror from their past remerges, they, along with now adult daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson), find they may have no choice but to get their ghost busting on one last time. So, the main problem with The Conjuring movies, has always been the "based on a true story" aspect of their presentation. Sure, Ed and Lorraine were indeed really people and they did in fact investigate claims of paranormal activity. Unlike their film counterparts however, they are well known to have been a couple of frauds. To begin with, this wasn't much of an issue, as horror films loosely (read: not really at all) based on true stories are common, but as the franchise progresses, and the Warrens are painted as more and more heroic, it becom...

Don't be a Stranger

The Strangers: Chapter 2 skulks into cinemas a little over a year after the underwhelming Chapter 1. While this is, probably, a little better than last year's instalment it still doesn't feel like a worthwhile use of anyone's time. It very much is a "chapter 2" situation rather than a sequel. Events pick up directly after the finale of the last film and end on a cliffhanger, with the already filmed third set to finish the story. Quite why this approach was taken is a mystery, as there isn't anything deeper or more expansive going on than what could easily fit inside a ninety minute slasher movie. We open with the local diner learning that one half of the stalked couple, Maya (Madelaine Petsch), survived being stabbed. We then cut to her in a hospital with no other patients and about two members of staff, both of whom soon disappear so that Maya can be stalked by the masked "strangers". That is pretty much the movie. Maya is chased, escapes, there i...

Honey Doesn't

Honey Don't is the second film from the director/writer team-up of Ethan (one half of the brothers) Coen and his wife Tricia Cook. Like their previous effort, "Drive Away Dolls", it is wonderfully queer but lacks any of the sharpness and precise pacing that typifies a classic Coen brothers movie. Margaret Qualley is Honey O'Donahue (a name you will hear spoken a LOT over the course of the film), a private investigator in Bakersfield. She is essentially a classic noir gumshoe detective transported to sun-bleached, modern-day California. After a would-be-client dies, Honey begins an investigation that has her cross paths with Chris Evans's skeezy preacher and the mysterious French woman who represents his business partners. She is also attempting to provide support to her sister, who has a small army of children, including an eldest daughter who she is constantly at loggerheads with. All while working her way through the lesbian population of town, including embarki...

Toxic Shock

The Toxic Avenger ambles his way into theatres some two years after the film was first shown at festivals. Strange that the movie had so much trouble finding a distributor given the presence of major names, relatively mainstream sensibilities (compared to the 80s original anyway) and the fact it's actually quite a bit of fun. Events take place in a fictional city inside a cartoonish, ultra-capitalist, crime-ridden caricature of 80s America, with locations called things like "Depressing Outskirts" and "Ye Olde Shithead District". Peter Dinklage is down on his luck janitor Winston Gooze, a widower with a step son who attempts to break into the headquarters of the mega-pharmaceutical company he works for when he discovers his gold level insurance doesn't cover treatment for his brain condition. Things go south and he is transformed into The Toxic Avenger, a mutated super human who sets about righting some wrongs in his crime ridden city. The film attempts t...

The Devil is in the Pigtails

Whatever your opinion of David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy its hard to deny he took a big swing at it and The Exorcist: Believer has a lot in common with the director's 2018 revitalisation of that franchise. Like Halloween 2018 this film ignores every previous sequel and is a direct follow up to the original Exorcist. Like Halloween 2018 this film sticks pretty closely to beats of the original but with heightened stakes (more kills for Halloween, twice the number of possessed kids here). Unlike Halloween 2018 this film isn't a complete success. Not that The Exorcist: Believer is a write off by any means. Having two friends be possessed is a nice way of distinguishing proceedings from the sea of other possession films we have seen over the last few years and adds an extra layer to dealing with the situation, not only does the worried father need to deal with what is happening to his daughter but also with another family and their beliefs on what should be done. The pos...

2023 at the Cinema

Its the start of a new year which means it's time to put some movies in their place. This is not a definitive list of the best films of 2023, only things I saw in the cinema are eligible (sorry Killers of the Flower Moon) so if you're wondering why your favourite/most hated flick isn't on here it's because I didn't see it on the big screen. Also, I reserve the right to have a completely different opinion about any and all of the entries in a weeks time. 50. The Enforcer Tedious, no action "thriller" about a criminal debt collector and his trainee street tough. Not sure if this snoozefest began with aspirations of being a no nonsense Taken clone or a serious redemption story but a plot driven by coincidence, awful dialogue and a 99 cents aesthetic make it feel like something from the depths of Amazon Prime rather than a cinema release. No idea how they wrangled Antonio Banderas into appearing in such a damp squib. 49. Saw X After attempting a detective m...

We are Living in a Material World

Materialists is, on the surface, a romantic drama-comedy about a New York matchmaker who faces a choice in her own love life. It has something more on its mind though, presenting a forensic examination of modern adult relationships and the incompatibility of expectation and genuine feeling. Dakota Johnson is Lucy, a specialist in matching together "elite" couples. For elite, read some of the worst people on Earth. Men who demand their partners have knockout bodies, adhere to strict weight limits and the younger the better. Women who will only consider the tall, rich and in one case, white. In Lucy's world marriage is a business deal and the ultimate match is the one who checks the most boxes. As a "voluntary celibate", she carries this philosophy into here every day life and has no interest in dating until she can find the rich man who will make husband material. The love cynic is a classic trope for the lead in a movie with this set up but there is much more...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog