Blood drenched and brutal, stylish and silly, “Boy Kills World,” a new action comedy starring Bill Skarsgård, and now playing on theatres, is a pure and simple story of revenge.
A prologue paints a picture of a post-apocalyptic future. Fascist leader Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) rules with an iron fist, using cruelty and unhinged televised murders called “The Culling,” featuring breakfast cereal mascots, to “make an example of those who pose a threat to the Van Der Koys.”
Into this, comes Skarsgård as Boy, a youngster left traumatized by Van Der Koy’s murder of his entire family. Deaf and mute, the orphaned Boy is rescued by enigmatic martial arts master Shaman (Yayan Ruhian). Years of training transform Boy from a small scared child, to a muscle-bound killer filled with rage, thoughts of vengeance and guided by an inner voice, courtesy of his favorite video game.
“I am an instrument, shaped for a single purpose,” his inner voice declares. “to kill Hilda Van Der Koy!”
With the help of resistance fighters Basho (Andrew Koji) and Benny (Isaiah Mustafa), Boy unleashes a deranged campaign of chaos that will lead him to the top echelons of power.
Recently “Monkey Man” mined some of the same territory as “Boy Kills World.” Both are films about avenging the death of a mother, both are high octane fight fests, but “Boy Kills World” replaces the solemn tone of “Monkey Man” with irreverence. The new film is essentially a series of cartoony, splatter-zone fight sequences hung around a simple story that sees Boy seek revenge using fists, knives, guns and even a cheese grater to an armpit.
“Boy Kills World” packs a wallop in those scenes, but does not deliver an emotional smackdown. Director and screenwriter Moritz Mohr floats a family story in the puddles of blood left behind by Boy’s rampage, but by the time we get there it is too little too late. We’ve already been desensitized by the ballet of bullets and buckets of blood. The tonal shift doesn’t work and goes on too long, but for genre fans, Skarsgård’s finely sculpted abs and twitchy action should satisfy.
Richard interviews Jessica Rothe & Harry Shum Jr., stars of the romantic drama “All My Life.” The pair play a young couple whose wedding plans are put into jeopardy when the groom-to-be is diagnosed with a terminal disease. Based on a true story, “All My Life” will be available on VOD as of December 23.
If “All My Life,” a new tearjerker starring Jessica Rothe and now playing in theatres, wasn’t based on the real life story of a Toronto couple, it would be the kind of story Nicholas Sparks would write.
Jennifer (Rothe) and Solomon (Harry Shum Jr.) are a cute couple who meet-cute in a bar and seem destined to live a cute happily ever after. They like the same kind of cheesy 80s rock, they laugh and giggle while jumping into water fountains and say things like, “I didn’t know how much I could actually love before I met you,” to one another.
But keep in mind, this isn’t a rom com. It’s a romantic drama in à la Sparks, so I’ll stop using the word cute now.
There’s nothing cute (whoops) about Sol’s diagnoses of terminal liver cancer. Their plans for a December wedding on hold, their friends raise money and give them the day of their dreams as Sol’s health worsens.
“All My Life” is a three or four hanky movie where everything you think will happen, happens. But what it lacks in innovation, it makes up for with a certain kind of comfortable predictability. You’ve heard the dialogue before—”You make me feel Like I can do anything. Like we can do anything.”—and the group of BFFs are the usual kind of misfits who could have wandered in from any number of other teen dramas but when the movie focusses on the leads, Rothe and Shum Jr., it becomes less about cliches and more about the heart of the story.
The pair share a number of scenes that drive home the direness of the situation. Strongest is a heartfelt discussion about their future plans that closes with, “I am not your widow, I am your bride,” a message of true love that makes up for the manipulation of the earlier scenes.
“All My Life” is sugary enough to give you a cavity, but in its better moments it is a reminder to embrace life and roll with the punches, no matter what happens.
When we last saw Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) she was a sharp-tongued Bayfield University trapped in a time loop, forced to relive the day of her death again and again. As the main character of “Happy Death Day” she died over and over again, blossomed spiritually all while figuring out who her masked killer was.
In the beginning of the sequel, “Happy Death Day 2U,” Tree is back to normal. The “Groundhog Day” style murder and mayhem has stopped and she’s an everyday student who no longer has to live (and die) in fear.
At least that’s how it starts. Tree wakes up one morning to discover she’s back in the deadly twilight zone. This time is different, however. The loop seems to be caused by a time machine built by Ryan (Phil Vu), roommate to Tree’s inter-dimensional boyfriend Carter (Israel Broussard). How does it work? Imagine a piece of paper folded into six equal squares and punch a hole through the middle. Unfold it. Six squares, six identical holes. That’s the multi-verse, Tree is the hole amid duplicate realities separated only by space and time.
The new loop sees Carter dating ultimate mean girl Danielle (an underused Rachel Matthews) and Tree’s deadly roommate Lori (Ruby Modine), now alive and no longer evil. The creepy killer is back but so is Tree’s late mother. “People say I Love you all the time,” Tree says, “but it was until you can’t say it to their face but you missed it.” Despite the masked killer mayhem Tree wants to stay stuck in the loop and foster a relationship with her mother, a situation that provides challenges for everyone. “I thought I could have it all but I couldn’t,” she says.
There are some movies where a sequel seems inevitable. They are stories that need a few extra acts to expand already interesting ideas and then there is “Happy Death Day.” The original was a tight slice of fantasy that mixed horror with humour to form a charming, complete package. The sequel takes the premise and the appealing actors from the first one and wastes them in an unnecessary follow-up that will only work if you’ve seen the original. Convoluted and not nearly as laugh-out-loud funny or as tense as the 2017 film, it zips along at the speed of light, piling twist on top of twist.
The idea of a multi-verse so articulately expressed in “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is messy and drawn-out here, dumbed down to simple repetition rather than richly imagined varied splinters of the main story.
It’s a shame because the core cast, Rothe, Broussard and Vu, all have faces John Hughes would have loved and work hard to make sense of a story that meanders through time. At best “Happy Death Day 2U” makes you wish you could go back in time to experience the sugar rush of the first film again for the first time.
Check out Richard’s conversation with “Forever My Girl” star Jessica Rothe in today’s Toronto Star!
“Jessica Rothe is what used to be called a ‘starlet.’ The thirty-year-old actor appeared with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the Oscar-winning La La Land, and last year was the best thing about the time-loop murder mystery Happy Death Day.
“She’s landing lead roles but still building her career, trying out various film genres and characters.
“One thing that feels very important to me as an artist is to continually challenge myself and push myself to do all kinds of different things,” she says. “If it is good storytelling, it is good storytelling. I just want to do it all…” READ THE WHOLE THING HERE!
Jessica Rothe is what used to be called a ‘starlet.’ The thirty-year-old actor appeared with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the Oscar-winning La La Land, and last year was the best thing about the time loop murder mystery Happy Death Day.
She’s landing lead roles but still building her career, trying out various film genres and characters.
“One thing that feels very important to me as an artist is to continually challenge myself and push myself to do all kinds of different things,” she says. “If it is good storytelling, it is good storytelling. I just want to do it all.”
Her latest is Forever My Girl, a romance in the mould of Nicholas Sparks. She plays Josie, a young woman left at the altar by boyfriend Liam, a musician who ran off to find fame as a country music star. When he returns to their small Southern town years later his presence reignites old feelings but there is a difference in the form of Billy, played by Abby Ryder Fortson, the daughter Liam never knew about.
Rothe says working with her precocious eight-year-old co-star helped her make Josie a fully rounded character.
“I met with Abby and her mom at a juice bar so she would feel comfortable with me,” Rothe says, “but we didn’t get a lot of prep time because she was still in school.
“In some way the fact that I was her mother in the film really benefitted our relationship because every time I didn’t know what I should be doing in the scene, or what Josie would be thinking about, it was always, ‘Where is Abby? Is Abby safe? Is she hungry?’ Having that be the backbone of Josie and her thought process was incredibly helpful. As somebody who is not a parent I can only imagine that is how you would function. It helped that our relationship on set and off set was very similar. I came to feel protective of her. Film sets can be crazy but I think it worked to our benefit.”
The actress, who will next be seen in an all-singing-all-dancing version of the 1983 romantic comedy Valley Girl, relates to her young co-star’s acting ambitions as well.
“If I, as an eight year old, could have been that worldly and on top of my game I would have been amazed with me,” she laughs. “I always knew I wanted to do this but I didn’t think it could be my real job. I’m lucky my parents are incredibly supportive and generous people who have put so much faith in me as I jump into this crazy business. It really is so far outside their comfort zone in terms of what a profession can be.”
Speaking of straying outside of comfort zones, Rothe already knows who she wants to work with next: horror master Guillermo del Toro.
“I just watched The Shape of Water the other night and thought that was absolutely stunning. It is almost the perfect movie. I could talk about it a lot but I won’t because I’ll get in trouble. Everyone reads the Forever My Girl interview and it is just me raving about The Shape of Water and trying to get a job on his next film. That would not go over really well!”
There are movies that surprise and surpass our expectations and there are those that don’t. The former feed the brain, the latter are like comfort food. With that in mind, “Forever My Girl,” the new romance starring Jessica Rothe, is meatloaf with a side of potatoes. Not good for you perhaps, and not really good at all, but somehow satisfying.
In a story that casts shade on Thomas Wolfe’s “you can never go home again” theory, “Forever My Girl” begins with Liam Page (Alex Roe), a small town boy made good. He’s a country music superstar, playing to packed houses and bedding groupies nightly. He’s also unhappy and suffering from writer’s block. As the country song on the soundtrack warbles, he’s “followed the script closely with whiskey, wimmen and pills.” When he learns his best friend from high school was killed by a drunk driver he goes AWOL, leaving behind a sold out tour to reconnect with his roots in St. Augustine, Louisiana.
No one is particularly happy to see him, not even his father (John Benjamin Hickey), the local minister. Even less thrilled is local florist Josie (Jessica Rothe), the woman he left on the altar when he skipped town to pursue his career. “No one has spoken about what you did here,” she says, “because we are family. We are loyal. Please just leave.”
Turns out there is more to the story in the form of Billy (Abby Ryder Fortson), a precocious eight year old and the daughter he never knew about. “I said I wanted to meet him,” Billy says, “but I didn’t say I would be easy on him.” As Liam reconnects with Josie, meets Billy and spends time with his dad the puzzle pieces of his life fall into place and he realizes what’s been missing. “I have no right to ask for anything,” he says, “but I’m here now.” You know the rest. (SPOILER ALERT) This is a romance not a tragedy.
“Forever My Girl” is written and directed by Bethany Ashton Wolf, based upon the novel by Heidi McLaughlin but is the kind of story Nicholas Sparks could conjure up in his sleep. The flowery Sparksian language is missing and there are no tearstained romantic letters—there is, however, a poignant voicemail saved on a duct-taped flip phone—but the spirit of everlasting love he exalts in parcels of passion like “The Notebook” loom.
London-born Roe has the dark good looks of a tortured country star and doers earnest quite well but it is the female stars that shine. As Billy, Fortson is a sparkplug with most of the film’s best lines. Rothe displays the natural charm that made her last performance in “Happy Death Day”—imagine “Groundhog Day” with a terrifying twist—so winning.
“Forever My Girl” isn’t great art. It’s a Hallmark movie by way of Harlequin that features nice looking people falling back in love but it’s the best non-Nicholas Sparks/Nicholas Sparks movie to come along in a while.
Happy Death Day’s advertising tagline sums up the entire plot in eight words. “Get Up. Live Your Day. Get Killed. Again.”
Like Groundhog Day with a terrifying twist, it’s the story of Tree Gelbman, a college student stabbed to death by a masked stranger at her own birthday party. Stuck in the twilight zone, she’s forced to relive the day of her murder again and again. The only way to save her life is to search for clues and solve her own murder. “I’ll keep dying until I figure out who my killer is,” she says.
The unlikely named Tree Gelbman is caught in a time loop, a Hollywood device screenwriters use to play with the linear nature of their plotlines. Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day role, a drunk, suicide-prone weatherman who discovers the beauty of life by living the same day endlessly, may be the granddaddy of all Hollywood déjà vu stories, but many other movie characters have been caught in cinematic time circles.
Run Lola Run sees crimson-haired Lola, played by Franka Potente, on a mission to help her boyfriend avoid a fate worse than death. He’s lost a bag with 100,000 deutschemarks and if he doesn’t find it in 20 minutes terrible things will happen. She rockets through Berlin looking for a solution, but each time she fails to find the loot and the 20-minute time loop starts again. Included in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, the film inspired an episode of The Simpsons and the music video for It’s My Life by Bon Jovi.
Before I Fall is a Young Adult time trip. Zoey Deutch stars as a woman trapped in her worst day ever. Like the time-travelling child of Groundhog Day and Mean Girls (but without Bill Murray or Rachel McAdams), it’s a study of teen angst magnified by a glitch in time. For its young adult audience the wild story raises questions about tolerance, bullying and behaviour.
The horror genre lends itself to time-bending tales as well. Camp Slaughter is a 2005 throwback to the slasher films of the 1980s. In this one, a group of modern teens stumble across Camp Hiawatha, a dangerous place where not-so-happy-campers are trapped in 1981 and forced to re-experience the night a maniacal murderer went on a killing spree. Labelled “Groundhog Day meets Friday the 13th (part 2,3,4,5,6,7,8… every one of them!)” by one critic, it’s gory good fun.
Not into gory? The Yuletide provides a less bloody backdrop for time-looping. The title Christmas Every Day is self-explanatory but 12 Dates of Christmas is better than the name suggests. Us Weekly called this Amy Smart romantic comedy about a woman stuck in an endless Christmas Eve, a sweet “nicely woven journey.”
Finally, the aptly named Repeaters is about a trio of recovering addicts who find themselves in “an impossible time labyrinth” after being electrocuted in a storm. Like most time-bending films, Repeaters is about learning from your mistakes. What sets it apart from some of the others are three unlikeable leads who use their situation to raise hell and break the law. It’s only when Kyle (Dustin Milligan) realizes they could be in big trouble if time suddenly unfreezes for them that familiar time-loop themes of redemption and self-reflection arise.
“Happy Death Day’s” advertising tagline sums up the entire plot in eight words. “Get Up. Live Your Day. Get Killed. Again.”
Like “Groundhog Day” with a terrifying twist, it’s the story of Tree Gelbman (“La La Land‘s” Jessica Rothe). She’s a sharp-tongued Bayfield University mean girl who begins her birthday, Monday October 18, waking up in the dorm room of a young guy named Carter (Israel Broussard). Hungover from the night before she’s late for class and has lunch with her sorority sisters before being stabbed to death by a stranger wearing a creepy Bayfield Babies mascot mask.
Stuck in the twilight zone, she’s forced to relive the day of her murder again and again. “Maybe I’m like a cat with nine lives,” she worries, “and I’m running out.” The only way to save her life is to search for clues and solve her own murder. Trouble is, the suspects could be anyone. “It could be the tiny girl at TJ Max I got fired,” she says, “or the Uber driver I spit on last week.” She is doomed to keep dying until she figures out who her killer is.
Blumhouse, “Happy Death Day’s” production company, are known for their low-budget high concept scares. They scored earlier this year with the brilliant “Get Out” and changed b-movie horror with their “Paranormal Activity” movies. Their latest thriller isn’t likely to be remembered as anything other than a politically incorrect thriller with a strong cast whose engaging performances keep the “today is the first day of the rest of your life… and death” premise interesting.
As snarky sorority sister Danielle newcomer Rachel Matthews is a scene-stealer elevates condescension to an art form and Broussard is goofily charming but it is Rothe’s movie. A combo of great comic timing, charisma and running mascara she does all the movie’s heavy lifting. Whether she’s in full-blown panic mode or on the inevitable journey of self discovery that comes with living your life on a loop—think Jennifer Garner’s “13 Going on 30” redemption—or cracking wise, she’s the star of the show.
“Happy Death Day” morphs from time loop murder mystery to spiritual rebirth story to romance to revenge all in a tight 90 minutes. The rewound days are varied enough to keep things interesting, with each new morning more frantic than the last. The PG13 rating means it’s not a thrill-a-minute but in addition to the fun performances it also has a few vulgar laughs, a few shocks and enough twists to be worth the price of the popcorn.
