Review of iBoy (2017) by Efu R — 22 May 2018

Strengths: I'll admit, the thing that drove me towards this film was Maisie Williams (Lucy Walker). She's great on Game of Thrones, so I wanted to see her in another setting. Thankfully, she was the best part of this movie. Her character suffers through a more harrowing experience than the protagonist, and it's written all over her in every scene she's in. She feels like the star of the film. The concept behind the movie is silly, yet rather interesting. There are a handful of entertaining scenes sprinkled in, making this watchable. Bill Milner (Tom Harvey/iBoy) is a decent lead.

Weaknesses: While the concept is intriguing, they completely miss the mark on what could make it work. It's the kind of thing that shouldn't take itself too seriously and play into the silliness of it all. Instead, iBoy plays thing straight and it causes many scenes to fall flat. Most of the characters don't really get developed and come across as clichéd. The antagonist, Ellman (Rory Kinear) shows up near the end and feels kind of thrown in. He shows up too late for me to really care. iBoy makes a lot of weird decisions throughout, the way he gains his powers is never really explained so it lacks credibility, and a lot of what he does just never makes you interested or invested in him.

Overall: There was a decent idea behind this, but the execution was mostly poor. Outside of Maisie Williams, a lot of the acting is subpar, yet it's the writing that really lets things down. Almost nothing is as fully developed as it could be and that causes a majority of the movie to miss the mark.