iBoy

I gave this movie a watch despite it's poor title choice. It's not particularly engaging and doesn't have a very good hook. Although the acting and cinematography are good.

A boy gets his smartphone smashed and embedded in his head, and gets super powers from this. His powers are never really explained, but it looks like he gets a heads up display of electronic items. As well as being able to control electronics with his mind. Such as speaking over radios and taking money out of online bank accounts.

Most of the characters are high school students and small time criminals. It's supposed to be gritty and street, but it's hard to believe. How are these kids so well armed? Why do they have access to all these drugs? What is ANYBODIES motivation? These are only some of the unanswered questions.

I think one of the main shortcomings is that audience age demographic wasn't properly decided on. Most of the actors are high school age, as well as most of the drama and comic relief. But the plot line and suspense is something from a more adult crime movie. The result gives us some incongruous action and unbelievable characters.

It's like a cross between 'Attack the Block' and '71'. Taking the characters from Block, and the convoluted plot from 71. But lacking all the congruity and charm of each project.

It looks good though and is well made. Everything but the plot is well executed. The super power angle ends up taking a back seat to the same old re-hashed Brit crime tropes after the first half. The climactic ending seems familiar. The establishing shots of London are the same as always. The cockney crime boss is just as menacing as in every other movie....

*Sigh*

You could completely avoid this movie and you'd miss nothing. Or if you like faux gritty Brit street movies then you'll find the good in this.

This movie has a lot of good qualities. A largely unknown cast come together nicely, and the cinematography, special effects and score are all very well done.

The story as a concept is pretty simple, and in the early stages of the movie things were looking very promising and I was enjoying it a lot. As the movie reaches its climax things began to run out of steam and a few unnecessary writing decisions opened up a number of plot holes which had me scratching my head at times. This movie didn't require the big ending it went for. Some more subtle twists and craft would have taken it to the next level and I can't help but thinking some big opportunities were missed.

Regardless, much of this movie is highly enjoyable and entertaining. I've certainly seen similar concepts executed far worse.

The biggest mistake you can make going into iBoy is expecting something from the Marvel catalog.

Cause that is simply not going to happen.

Instead what you get is a solid Brit "estate gang" story (like Harry Brown 2009 or a dozen others you could probably recite from memory) with some Marvel/Spiderman superhero stuff cleverly thrown in.

And that is a mouthful because I have watched and reviewed a lot of films (check out my list, about 1300) and have never seen anything quite like this before.

Does it work? For the most part, YES. There are some pacing issues here and there, and it takes a while for the young lead to develop a character arc that the audience is comfortable with, but the suspense/payoff is rock-solid and nail-biting; and the close is edgy but respectful and optimistic.

The two best performances come from supporting actors -- another oddity.

Maisie Williams steals every scene not otherwise nailed down and does so with a sweetness of character that makes you wish you knew someone like her when you were in school.

And Rory Kinnear as the arch-villain almost but not quite moves into the rarefied air of a Bond film -- you keep waiting for him to say "WHAT DO I WANT IBOY, I WANT YOU TO DIE" -- but shows enough restraint to keep from falling over the edge.

In short, given the brilliant idea, the solid execution and its ability to keep the viewer both offguard and entertained at the same time, this a fun flick deserving of a higher IMDb score than I am seeing.

Recommended!

In a gang ridden area of London, teenager Tom Harvey (Bill Milner) finally gets the opportunity to approach his crush Lucy Walker (Maisie Williams) and the two arrange a study session later that evening. When Tom arrives, he finds the door broken and a gang of figures having assaulted and raped Lucy. One of the gang shoots tom in the head and fragments of Tom's iPhone become embedded in his brain. With Lucy still in shock from her trauma and Tom feeling guilty for having fled, Tom tries to be there for Lucy while also harboring rage for the gang who assaulted her. Eventually Tom sees projections of IT data coming from surrounding electronics and discovers he can hack into these devices and even overload them. Using this power, Tom discovers the identity of one of the gang members from the assault and uses his powers to embark on a crusade of vigilante justice against the gang from the bottom up as the hacker vigilante IBoy.

IBoy is a 2017 adaptation of the Kevin Brooks YA novel of the same name. The screenplay was adapted by Joe Barton who had previously created the BBC period drama Our World War, and written some episodes for the Channel 4 sci-fi drama Humans. The film marks the second directorial feature of Adam Randall following his 2016 film Level Up. At its core the movie is a basic vigilante film with an absurd tech/quasi-superhero element to it, but provided you can swallow the film's rather outlandish premise it delivers exactly what you expect from a film like this.

The movie features two solid leads in Bill Milner as Tom Harvey/iBoy and Maisie Williams as Lucy Walker respectively. The two have a natural chemistry that comes through in their interactions and you buy into their relationship because they convey so much richness to their interactions. While like many vigilante movies Lucy's rape is a catalyst for Tom to go on a rampage, Lucy is given more agency here than Carol Kersey for example from Death Wish who spent the film catatonic so she was pretty much a non-entity while Paul went on his rampage. While the standards for women roles in these types of movies are a pretty low bar with films like Ms.45, I Spit on Your Grave, or Billy Jack being the only examples I can think of to try make a statement about rape (whether it was successful or not will vary by POV), iBoy does okay with the topic and it does give Lucy's character a cathartic scene to confront her pathetic attackers despite still bogged down by the inherent baggage that comes with the subgenre.

The real selling point for any vigilante film is the vigilantism and assuming you can look past the very silly explanation for Tom's hacker wizard powers, the gimmick does lend itself to some creative sequences of Tom/iBoy messing with these hateful gangs and drug dealers and Adam Randall does keep the film visually interesting emphasizing the steel and glass of modern London with the cyber gimmick of AR overlays being pretty entertaining and reasonably well integrated. The movie does drag a bit in its climax with the ultimate confrontation of the gang's leader with our protagonists but despite not being as entertaining as the other scenes it is sold by the performers and Maisie Williams gets some solid opportunities to showcase her acting prowess.

IBoy is your basic vigilante movie with a modern gimmick tapping into the cultural zeitgeist of technological creep and modern gritty superhero tropes. Bill Milner and Maisie Williams both give good performances and have solid chemistry and keep the film engaging. While the movie taps into the expected tropes of the subgenre (including those regarding women) it does try to address issues rather than sweep them aside like so many others in the subgenre. If you like vigilante films you'll find plenty of moments to enjoy as iBoy messes with these gangs and drug dealers in entertainingly violent fashion.

"This is your phone. Did it miss all the important bits? Well, it's a brain, so we tend to think of all of it as quite important."

Every now and then I watch a movie and afterwards I can't decide whether it's good or bad. "iBoy" is such a movie. I thought the initial idea was fascinating. The fact that Tom (Bill "Broken" Milner), got a bullet through his head, while fleeing from robbers, and his iPhone (which he was using while contacting 911) was shot into smithereens and fragments ended up in his brain, was in itself a original starting point. The result afterwards is that, thanks to the advanced technology of iPhone, he's able to make mental contact with communication networks and information technology stuff. Isn't that breeding ground for an entertaining movie? But the moment he demonstrates how he controls a Volkswagen Golf remotely and uses the built-in radio to speak too the passengers, it was a bridge too far. As he takes control over any electronic device, it started to feel a bit absurd.

If however you manage to forget about that and you won't concentrate on the nonsensical content (as a result the nonsense-level decreases slightly), you'll get an entertaining film about a sort of superhero (without the obligatory superhero outfit) who takes revenge on those who assaulted Lucy (Maisie Williams), the girl he has a soft spot for. Tom soon discovers that some local thugs are behind this. And thanks to his high-tech capabilities he starts making their life difficult. The images he sees because of his newly gained powers, have a sort of "The Matrix" appearance. And slowly we see how the fairly timid and introverted Tom changes into a confident and resolute avenger who's not one to be trifled with. The instruction video on YouTube that suddenly transforms Tom into a trained practitioner of the martial arts, is again such a ridiculous event you should forget about real soon. Just making sure it won't spoil the fun.

"IBoy" is a mixture of different genres. Besides the superhero theme, there's also a social tinged drama about less well-off citizens with youngsters choosing to follow the criminal path. The overall picture includes some intimidating loiterers who spend their free time with committing small crimes. Their habitat is also in stark contrast with the magnificent buildings opposite their drab apartment buildings which rise like minarets between the futuristic looking luxury apartments where the yuppies of London live. And finally there is a romantic part with Tom and Lucy growing close to each other because of the incident. These three sub-genres were intelligently intertwined.

Initially, I expected some sort of teen SF (something like "Project Almanac") after reading its contents. And certainly the choice of a childish superhero name, paved the way for that thought. So, with some skepticism I started watching this movie. But as the story progressed, my suspicion vanished and I could only conclude that the end result was ultimately successful. And not only because of the stunning images of this metropolis and its nightly illuminations. Also the performances captivated me. Bill Milner really looked like a nerd and was sometimes too timid, but he excels in this role. Rory Kinnear's contribution is rather limited, but in those few minutes he came across as a cold-blooded and determined criminal you shouldn't underestimate. But especially Maisie Williams steals the show as the vulnerable and traumatized Lucy. What a beautiful performance. I only hope, no one will come up with the idea to make a film adaptation of someone whose PS4 exploded besides him. Or God forbid, an e-cig detonated in someones pocket. I can already imagine how this movie would look like.

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