‘Boy Kills World’ is a Blindingly Colorful and Surprisingly Thoughtful Revenge Tale

April 23, 2024

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Oh, Boy! (CREDIT: Roadside Attractions)

Starring: Bill Skarsgård, H. Jon Benjamin, Jessica Rothe, Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, Andrew Koji, Famke Janssen, Sharlto Copley, Yayan Ruhian, Nicholas Crovetti, Cameron Crovetti, Quinn Copeland

Director: Moritz Mohr

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: R for Blood, Guts, and All Sorts of Deadly Injuries

Release Date: April 26, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: They killed his family right in front of him when he was a child, and now he’s spent the rest of his life preparing for vengeance. Isn’t that always the way on the silver screen?  Indeed, the revenge genre remains vibrant and durable, especially when the setting is a fascistic post-apocalyptic society like in Boy Kills World. In the dystopian tradition of The Hunger Games and The Purge, Boy (Bill Skarsgård) is one of the many victims of The Culling, in which the ruling van der Koy family rounds up a group of citizens to be annually slaughtered on live TV. Boy’s mom and sister were among those culled many years ago in an attack that left him deaf and mute. Now, following his tutelage from a single-minded shaman (Yayan Ruhian), he’s ready to mete out some bloody, cheeky justice during this year’s edition. And since he can’t talk, we get to keep company with his cartoonishly nervous inner voice (H. Jon Benjamin, naturally) and the ghostly memory of his spunky little sis (Quinn Copeland).

What Made an Impression?: Kickbox the Rainbow: If Skittles stopped being a candy and started being an action movie, the result of that alchemy would surely be Boy Kills World. Boy’s bright vest is matched by the dandy-ish pants and cravats of the most eccentric van der Koy (Sharlto Copley, naturally), and counterbalanced by pops of canary yellow, particularly on the mysterious helmet-wearing combat specialist played by Jessica Rothe. Furthermore, the frenetic martial arts bouts feel like they were choreographed by eight-year-olds who mainlined their Halloween hauls, but then finessed by more sober professionals. This relentless approach could be blinding and exhausting, but it’s all tempered by Benjamin’s steadily phlegmatic narration.
A Vicious Cycle: Boy Kills World could have settled for just delivering shallow thrills, but it has more on its mind than that. The question hanging over Boy’s journey ultimately isn’t whether or not he can kill all his enemies, but whether or not he can ever truly escape this oppressive society. And on top of that, can any of the van der Koys untether themselves from their violent family legacy? The final act makes it clear that Boy has become so much more twisted by his trauma than he realizes, and he’s not the only one. For anyone who’s been born into a clan with unhealthy patterns that keep repeating themselves, this movie might just provide the inspiration you need to disengage from that paradigm. The presentation might be as cartoonish as possible, but the psychological underpinnings are as firm as can be.

Boy Kills World is Recommended If You Like: Street Fighter, Sugar rushes, Traumatic psychology

Grade: 4 out of 5 Cullings

‘The Bob’s Burgers Movie’ is Here to Ask: How Can You Possibly Resist Seeing the Belcher Clan on the Big Screen?

May 26, 2022

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The Bob’s Burgers Movie (CREDIT:
20th Century Studios/Screenshot)

Starring: H. Jon Benjamin, John Roberts, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal, Larry Murphy, Kevin Kline, Zach Galifianakis, David Wain, Gary Cole, Sam Seder, Aziz Ansari, David Herman, Brian Huskey, Jenny Slate, Ron Lynch, Stephanie Beatriz, Nicole Byer

Directors: Loren Bouchard and Bernard Derriman

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Some Surprisingly Scary Situations

Release Date: May 27, 2022 (Theaters)

Has it really been 12 seasons and over 200 episodes of Bob’s Burgers already? It somehow still occupies that “New Show” headspace in the Media Consumption Lobe of my brain, and yet an entire generation has now been raised by the Belcher crew. However long it’s lasted, this delightfully quirky animated Fox standby remains a reliable AND exciting part of my viewing routine. It’s a perfect way to spend a half hour on a Sunday evening (or the next Monday morning, or sometime later in the week when Peak TV obligations are really piling up). Just as middle child Tina still goes crazy over butts after all these years, so too am I eternally jazzed about the prospect of a big screen Belcher adventure as if it were the first time I were ever going to the theater. As long as it stays true to its underdog self, then I and legions of other loyal fans will be satisfied.

What’s profoundly striking about The Bob’s Burgers Movie is how much it doesn’t differ from a typical episode, beyond the stretched-out running time. Yes, the screen is a little wider, and the animation is a little more high-definition. But there’s no big-name stunt cameos or any trips across the universe. Instead, the whole thing is confined to a few of the typical locations in the same old anonymous East Coast beach town with the regular voice cast doing what they’ve always done.

What is different is that the stakes are a little higher. The family restaurant is the closest it’s ever been to bankruptcy, Tina’s ready to ask longtime crush Jimmy Pesto Jr. if he’ll be her summer boyfriend, the danger at hand is legitimately life-threatening, and there are some wonderfully go-for-broke musical numbers. But once again, these are motifs that have already come up multiple times on the show, so it’s only mild heightening. True, it’s not every day that a giant sinkhole opens up in front of Bob’s Burgers and makes it basically impossible for customers to enter. Nor is it every day that skeletal remains are found in front of the restaurant, and in a giant sinkhole no less. And that is what happens in the movie, as it sets off a juvenile murder investigation and some renegade burger cart hawking on the boardwalk. To the uninitiated, that might indeed sound like something wonderfully out-of-the-ordinary. But this is an adaptation of a show that just pulled off an ambitious Blade Runner homage in its most recent season finale. I’m not complaining about this familiarity; instead, I’m happily listing all the ways that The Bob’s Burgers Movie feels like home.

So, the first big-screen adventure of one of my favorite animated families is far from mind-blowing, but as I walked out of the theater, I had this thought: wouldn’t it be lovely if this became a new annual tradition? On the weekend after the latest season finale, we always get a new Bob’s Burgers movie. We spend most of the year getting our patty-bun-and-topping fill at home, and then we commune with our fellow burgerholics out in the wild, and maybe introduce a few new friends and family to the routine each time. Isn’t that a world you’d like to live in? Isn’t that a world you’d like your children to live in? We’ve already had so many Burgers of the Day, now it’s time for the Burgers of the Year.

The Bob’s Burgers Movie is Recommended If You Like: Food Puns and Thick Buns

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Burgers of the Day