Picture the scene: An Average Joe has a close brush with death only to wake up with a host of superhuman abilities. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s because it’s served as the foundation for all kinds of sci-fi stories throughout the years, regardless of whether they’re based in film, video games, or literature.
But if Josh Trank’s Chronicle proved one thing, it’s that you can take a tried-and-tested formula and flip it on its head, creating an experience that is both refreshing and genuinely entertaining. Hoping to do just that is director Adam Randall, whose iBoy is now two weeks out from its Netflix premiere.
Headed up by Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams and Bill Milner, the latter will take point as Tom, the aforementioned Average Joe who uncovers smartphone superpowers following a near-death experience. It’s difficult to gauge the extent of those otherworldly abilities from this trailer alone, but even still, there’s a tangible, gritty aesthetic to be found in iBoy that evokes memories of Attack the Block – and that can only be a good thing.
Here’s the official synopsis:
“Tom is an average teenager whose world is turned on its head when a violent encounter with local thugs leaves fragments of his shattered smartphone embedded in his brain. He wakes from a coma to discover that returning to normal teenage life is impossible because he has developed a strange set of superpowers. With these new powers he sets out to seek revenge on the gang, who also assaulted his best friend Lucy (Williams).”
Also starring Miranda Richardson and Rory Kinnear, iBoy will boot online via Netflix on January 27. Williams, meanwhile, is currently deep in production on the final two seasons of Game of Thrones, with the seventh on course to take flight sometime this summer.
