iBoy

#StokerScore 3/10

Having seen the trailer for this new Netflix Original a couple of weeks ago, I was intrigued. It reminded me of The Matrix with a couple of visuals, the casting of Rory Kinnear as 'the bad guy', following up his turn as the monster in Penny Dreadful, and Maisie Williams, whose character in Game of Thrones suggests a real talent is about to explode were well placed, the London setting was even reminiscent of Joe Cornish's 2011 sci-fi surprise Attack The Block, so all looked good. 

I haven't read the Kevin Brook's novel, on which the movie is based, so was coming to it with only the trailer's information. The unwinnable 'book vs novel' argument is not something I ever want to discuss as it is, IMO, unfair to both genres in terms of putting the story on the screen, but it does allow for some interesting comparisons in visualising the authors intentions. 

All was going along swimmingly, if slightly predictably, in this story of an underdog righting wrongs for the love of a fair maiden. It's every superhero story you've ever seen, but with a tweak rather than a twist, the tweak being the superpowers and how they are, unexplainedly, happening. That being said, it's easy to guess between the lines and is enjoyable right up to the introduction of Kinnear's Ellman. At this point, either the editor of the movie left a hugely important scene on the cutting room floor or the audience is expected to believe that a line has been drawn between two invisible dots. I was gobsmacked. What came after, the way the movie ended was right there alongside all superhero movies, but that hole in the story, that was really unexpected and quite spoiled the movie for me.

After forty minutes or so, I was looking at a solid 8 on the stokerscore-o-meter but the missing link, so to speak, has left me still annoyed after sleeping on my review thoughts.