iBoy is a Netflix’s film released in January 2017, and the film carries a typical Netflix’s signature of science fiction, i.e. one of the reasons I love Netflix so much. No other programme provides gives so much on science fiction and especially not in such a diverse way as Netflix.
This film presents a story of two teenagers where Tom (Bill Milner) comes to see his friend Lucy (Maisie Williams) only to find her brutally assaulted by a local gang because her brother refused to join them. Instead of helping, Tom runs away and gets injured on the way. In the hospital, the elements of his smart phone are being built into his brain to make him functional, however, these electrodes brought an interesting change in his mental abilities as now he has superpowers that prevent him from going back to the normal life.
Therefore, Tom now has the ability to mentally log on to mobile phones and other electronic devices and listen to conversations, access data, send texts, start a fire, defend himself by causing a buzzing noise, and all that by using his tech brain. In that, Tom uses this newly acquired ability to find out who attacked his friend and then to initiate a haunt against the attackers. Through a dynamic development, we see all of his abilities exposed and these abilities are different than what we normally see in other science fiction movies.
What is also different in this film is that the main character in the film, Tom, does not use superpowers for personal gain but to help his friend. In a way, this film shows humans in a less dark way as is the case with other science fiction movies that project a dark reality and portray humans in a bad way only (e.g. Purge, the Hunger Games). This is what makes this film different.
Thank you for reading.