Boy Kills World (2024)

It always happens. One great success leads to numerous imitators. That can lead to other successes, as has happened in recent years with a certain kind of action cinema. It can also lead to the occasional mid-step, at best. Boy Kills World is a mis-step, although it’s one that I know plenty of people enjoyed more than I did.

Bill Skarsgård plays our main character, a mute man who narrates his own life in an inner voice (H. Jon Benjamin) that he used to enjoy hearing in one of his favourite videogames. He is living in a strange dystopian world, one in which the rulers occasionally just pick people to kill/sacrifice, and his own loss drives him on a wild and bloody quest for revenge.

What you get here, when it works, is an enjoyably creative killing spree centering on a main character who is skilled and fortunate enough to deal with waves of disposable villains. The action is certainly fun and energetic, and everything is underlined by a streak of hunour that many will enjoy (although it didn’t work for me).

Director Mortiz Mohr, making his feature debut, feels like someone making a feature debut. This has a great idea at the heart of it, it’s trying to boil down a pure and simple action movie aesthetic into something even more pure and simple, but the end result is too messy, with a muddled plot, clumsy tonal movement, and characters that you don’t ever care about, even if Skarsgård has an innate likability to him.

The script, fully fleshed out by Arend Remmers and Tyler Burton Smith, is a mess. I never once believed the world depicted onscreen, and the attempt to add some twists and turns were altogether unsuccessful. Either keep things rooted in pure action madness or try to deliver plotting that people will care about. This moves between both, and that caused it to leave me unsatisfied with both aspects.

Skarsgård makes up for many failings though. His wide-eyed turn is very enjoyable, and he looks more than capable when in full-on rage fighting mode. That’s a good thing indeed, because almost everyone else here is wasted. Michelle Dockery, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, Famke Janssen, all wasted. It should be a crime to waste Janssen this badly. Jessica Rothe is also wasted, as is the fantastic Yayan Ruhian, although he gets a few good moments throughout, and it’s at least good to see him in a fairly central role.

I really wanted to enjoy this. I expected to enjoy it. While I didn’t hate it, I was surprised by how poor it was. Is it worth a watch one evening when you want some bloody entertainment to accompany snacks and drinks? Yes. Is it worth a rewatch at any point, and will it stay long in your memory once you go on to many of the other action movies from the past few years? Absolutely not.

4/10

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Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

I really enjoyed the timeloop slasher shenanigans of Happy Death Day so I knew I would be keen to see a sequel. My enthusiasm for it was not at all diminished when I heard that it takes things in a surprisingly different direction from the first film, focusing on more comedy than thrills, and I think that most people should be aware of that before the film begins. Because this IS a very different beast from its predecessor, despite early scenes trying to pretend otherwise (for all of ten minutes).

Tree (Jessica Rothe) is delighted to have finally reached the day after her birthday, the day that she was stuck in for the duration of the first movie, waking up every morning in a bed in the dorm room of Carter (Israel Broussard).  Unfortunately, the same problem is now affecting Carter's roommate, Ryan (Phi Vu). But there's every chance that it has something to do with the science project that he has been working on with Samar (Suraj Sharma) and Andrea (Sarah Yarkin). And it's not just time that has been pushed out of whack, there are parallel universes to also consider.

As well as all of the returning faces in front of the camera, Christopher Landon is back in the director's chair, and also gives himself the writing duties this time around. There's not as much needed this time around when it comes to establishing the visual signposts, and Landon uses the freedom to get things moving along as quickly as possible, removing the tension and upping the quirkiness and the comedy. It's a bold choice, and not an entirely successful one, for reasons that I'll get to after the next paragraph (see, I DO plan what I write sometimes).

All of the leads do great work, with Rothe and Broussard once again proving a great pairing to anchor the main events. Vu is immediately likeable as soon as he is pushed front and centre, while Sharma and Yarkin get a nice selection of scene-stealing lines and moments between them. Steve Zissis is the stereotypical angry dean who gets in the way of things, and he is fun in that role, while Ruby Modine, Rachel Matthews, and Charles Aitken all seem to enjoy portraying their characters with a bit of a twist, compared to how we viewed them the first time around.

I quite enjoyed the comedy of Happy Death Day 2U (there's a death montage that is one of the most enjoyably twisted and amusing things I have seen in a "teen movie" in years). I didn't even mind the more dramatic moments, forced as they were, when Tree was once again struggling to deal with the loss of her mother. I could have done without that particular strand, and I think the film would have been better without it, but it's perfectly fine, for what it is. So it's a shame there's so little tension this time around, the little that is there dissipates by the time we get to the third act. And it's an even greater shame that more intriguing possibilities teased in the earlier scenes are then just dropped for the rest of the film. Those are the two main failings of the film, major enough to at least drag this just below the bar set by the first film.

If you ensure that you have calibrated your expectations before pressing play, Happy Death Day 2U is fun. It's just easy to see ways in which it could have been so much better.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Happy Death Day (2017)

Just because everyone else has mentioned it already doesn't mean that I will refrain from using the same words; Happy Death Day is best described as Scream meets Groundhog Day. If that very brief summation of the plot doesn't appeal to you then you're unlikely to enjoy it. But if your face lights up at those words . . . this will work for you.

Jessica Rothe plays a college student named Theresa, AKA Tree, who wakes up on her birthday, goes about her usual activities, and ends up dying violently at the hands of a murderous madman. She then wakes up again, on her birthday, and starts trying to figure out what is going on, and trying to get through the day without dying. Unfortunately, someone is very very determined to have her dead by the end of the day. And each death leads to a jump back to the start of the day.

Although you could point at Happy Death Day and bemoan the lack of bloodshed and more adult content, that would be nitpicking. This is, after all, a film for teens, and it succeeds brilliantly in that regard.

The script by Scott Lobdell gets everything right. There aren't too many main characters (with most of the action revolving around Tree and the boy she first sees upon waking up every morning, Carter), the main activities throughout the day are obvious pointers of the timeline, and also ready to be changed by the actions of Tree, the deaths are decent enough, and the mystery element - the who and the why - is simple and effective.

Director Christopher Landon shows, once again, that he's a dab hand with the horror genre tropes. This may not be as much fun as his previous outing, Scout's Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse, but it's almost an ideal teen horror (with a little bit of comedy) to please most people wanting something for the weekend.

Rothe and Israel Broussard (playing Carter) make for decent leads, despite my not being overly familiar with either of them. They work well together, and Rothe is in almost every scene (due to the nature of the plot device), and there are also decent enough supporting turns from Ruby Modine, Charles Aitken, Laura Clifton, and everyone else involved. Surprisingly, considering how often it happens in these movies, there aren't any seasoned genre stars in cameo roles, as far as I can recall, but the material is strong enough to make any such concessions or winks unnecessary.

I can understand why some horror fans wouldn't want to give any of their time to this. It's fairly safe and inoffensive stuff, in many ways. But that doesn't mean that it isn't worthwhile. While it may not be all that intense, or any kind of splattery gorefest, it's a surprisingly smart and enjoyable twist on standard slasher fare.

7/10

Pick it up here.
And Americans can pick it up here.