Boy Kills World Trailer is Overflowing with Style

Movies

If you’ve ever wanted your life narrated by  a video game voiceover, Roadside Attractions has the movie for you. Today, Roadside released a trailer for their upcoming action film Boy Kills World. The directorial debut of Moritz Mohr, Boy Kills World follows a nameless boy in a fascist, dystopian future who is rendered deaf and mute when the evil government kills his family. Swearing revenge, the boy – who is referred to only as “Boy” – trains to become a brutal killer and joins a resistance movement while creating an inner voice based on one he heard in his favorite arcade game. Bill Skarsgård stars as Boy, with Jessica Rothe, Famke Janssen, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Andrew Koji, and Sharlto Copley in supporting roles; H. John Benjamin provides Boy’s inner voice. Boy Kills World is being distributed by Lionsgate and will hit theaters on April 26, 2024. You can see the trailer below:

I really want to like this, but based on the trailer, I think Boy Kills World can go either way. There’s a thin line between an action movie being self-aware and making fun of itself, and the trailer makes it seem like Boy Kills World is teetering on that line. It’s not the high concept that bothers me; I like the idea behind the story, which has a little bit of The Running Man in it (and the corporate sponsors for the evil regime’s games is very Philip K. Dick), and if used properly, the video game voice could be fun. But it can also dip into parody, and it’ll be a tough act to pull off for a whole movie without undermining the tension. Then, there are lines like “Insert crazy action montage;” again, this could go either way, either signaling, “Here’s the fun stuff you came to see” or “Aren’t these movies so stupid?” I hope it’s the former because I’m glad we’ve been getting so many good action movies lately, and I’m always ready for another. I’m also interested in seeing Bill Skarsgård as the hero; he’s got a creepy look to him that gets him cast as villains (It, John Wick: Chapter 4), so I’d like to see what he makes of a hero, albeit a seemingly tortured and violent one. And I’m very happy to see Famke Janssen again; I always liked her, and she seems to have aged out of the kind of roles she played in the 90s and early 2000s, which is a shame. I don’t think we got enough of he when she was in bigger roles. So, my fingers are crossed for Boy Kills World, but I’m not entirely sold yet.