This was extremely violent and brutally gory. That does not bother me much, but there were more things that did bother me in Boy Kills World.

According to IMDB, “Bill Skarsgård stars as “Boy” who vows revenge after his family is murdered by Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), the deranged matriarch of a corrupt post-apocalyptic dynasty that left the boy orphaned, deaf, and voiceless. Driven by his inner voice, one which he co-opted from his favorite childhood video game, Boy trains with a mysterious shaman (Ruhian) to become an instrument of death and is set loose on the eve of the annual culling of dissidents. Bedlam ensues as Boy commits bloody martial arts mayhem, inciting wrath of carnage and blood-letting. As he tries to get his bearings in this delirious realm, Boy soon falls in with a desperate resistance group, all the while bickering with the apparent ghost of his rebellious little sister.”

The positives for me was Bill Skarsgård, who I think was really good as the deaf/mute hero. My only problem with him was my own. When I looked at Skarsgård, all I could see was a combination of professional wrestlers Cody Rhodes and Edge and it distracted me constantly. Again, that is not the fault of the film and I thought Skarsgård was very good as this action character.

The action did not work very well for me. There was a lot of camera movement in the fight choreography that was annoying. The fights and the blood did become a bit dull for me because it was overdone. Too much blood and violence dampened the effect of both of them.

The voice over of Boy’s inner thoughts was hit and miss for me. There were some fun lines with it, and others that just felt like it was out of place. I did like the fact that the internal voice was the voice from Boy’s favorite video game as a youth, but the use of “Finish him” or “Fatality” seemed excessive. Funny at first, then not so much.

I became bored by this movie rather quickly, and by the time the third act came around and there was some movement on the story (predictable as it may have been) I had checked out. Not the worst film I have seen this year by a long stretch, just not very good.

2.6 stars