2/5 stars

Exploding onto the screen like the bastard son of a dozen 1980s action movies and an arcade full of beat-’em-up video games, Boy Kills World is a whirl of blood-soaked martial arts and jet black humour that barely pauses for breath.

Over the course of two hours, Boy tears through the hierarchy of a near-future dystopia in the hopes of destroying the regal Van Der Koys, responsible for murdering his family.

The hook to Boy Kills World is that, because of his debilitated senses, Boy narrates his every waking moment through an incessant internal monologue, in a voice lifted from his favourite childhood video game, Super Dragon Punch Force 3.

Comedian and voice artist H. Jon Benjamin (Archer, Bob’s Burgers) provides Boy with the vocal identity for his relentlessly self-aware, comic-book-style voice-over.

Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen) rules with an iron fist, staging an annual “culling”, whereby a dozen enemies of the state are ceremonially executed in front of the people.

Such a fate befell Boy’s own mother and sister, and he has spent the years since living in hiding, honing his body into a lethal weapon under the brutal tutelage of Yayan Ruhian’s unforgiving Shaman.

Once Boy is set in motion, there is no stopping the swathe of bloody carnage he unleashes.

First-time writer-director Moritz Mohr shot the film in South Africa, which lends it a visually distinctive otherworldliness, but beyond this cosmetic exoticism, Boy Kills World ploughs a painfully familiar path.

Its sustained tone of fast-paced choreography, splashy violence and knowingly irreverent humour soon becomes exasperating, leaving it with no other option than to barrel towards a wholly predictable finale.

Skarsgard’s performance must be commended for its physicality, but ultimately Boy Kills World becomes as much of a physical ordeal to watch as for its hero to survive, and will surely prompt all but the most resilient of viewers to tap out long before justice is served.

Before Glen Powell was Hollywood’s most in-demand leading man, he spent years losing out on major roles. But when he finally got the call that the part of cocky “Top Gun: Maverick” pilot Hangman was his, he nearly turned it down.

The “Hit Man” star lost on blockbuster roles including Captain America and Han Solo in “Solo,” in addition to pieces in films ranging from “Friday Night Lights” to “Cowboys & Aliens” and “The Longest Ride.” His break should have come when Miles Teller beat him out for the part of Rooster in “Top Gun” and Tom Cruise and director Joe Kosinski offered him the role of Hangman instead. There was just one problem.

“‘If I were editing this movie, I would cut him out immediately,” Powell told British GQ. The original version of the character was a lousy pilot who made it to Top Gun through nepotism, a storyline Powell thought did the film a disservice.

Cruise and Kosinski decided to hear Powell out and ended up convinced, rewriting the character based on the “Anyone But You” actor’s notes.

“What we were talking about is, how can Hangman service the story and give the flavour of the original Top Gun that you need?” Powell said.

“I said my piece to Tom about what I do and what I do well, and he listened. Tom’s a listener. He listens to the crew members, he listens to his collaborators, and he hears people.”

And good thing he did — “Top Gun: Maverick” went on to become a box office phenomenon, and Powell’s career got the kickstart he had waited so long for.

Idealistic young teacher Carla Nowak (played with anxious intensity by Leonie Benesch) is a new arrival at a German secondary school. Well-meaning and empathetic, she is the conductor of a peaceful classroom. A shot of Carla from behind, her arms beautifully outstretched, suggests this is her daily orchestra. She is organised and dedicated, if a touch closed off from her fellow teachers.

But when a student of Turkish origin is accused of stealing money, and Carla’s own surveillance of the teachers’ lounge indicates the guilt of Friederike Kuhn, an administrative staff member, we realise she’s far from in control. Carla’s star pupil, Lukas (Mrs Kuhn’s son), resents the accusation aimed at his mother. The students rally around him and the teachers, divided by internal disagreements, seem almost powerless to assert control.

Long gone is the strict discipline of The 400 Blows or Dead Poets Society. The students in the film seek neither escape to the outside world nor solace in the rich inner worlds sparked by poetry. As they have been taught, these students seek answers. They seek justice. As the editor of the student newspaper boldly declares that, outside of truth, “everything else is just PR.”

The path to maturity for the students seems not to lie in compromising their ideals but in sticking to them ever more fiercely. It’s a wonderful inversion of what the Germans call “Bildung,” the tradition which examines the formative years of youth, marked as it is by a certain moral education. But the students cede no ground. They are uninterested in the murky give-and-take of the adult world. Their world is zero sum.

Indeed, it is the teachers’ uncertain sense of themselves as disciplinarians and moral leaders that provides so much fuel for the plot. They do not know who they are, and the students grasp it quickly. Carla in particular has ideals, but does she really believe in them? Çatak satirises the speed at which the right to privacy, freedom of the press, and the concept of innocent until proven guilty are upended in the search for a thief. It’s quite an achievement, especially given that thrillers are rarely satirical, and satires seldom thrilling.

The film moves so briskly that viewers can be forgiven for failing to notice that on Carla’s surveillance video, Mrs Kuhn’s blouse is patterned with little stars. It’s a knowing nod to Germany’s tragic past. That Mrs Kuhn also represents a slightly different power struggle within the school – between the teachers and the administrative staff – adds more complexity to The Teachers’ Lounge. One can only hope that the next films concerning the consequences of accusation are so richly engaging.

Verdict: Five stars