Firestarter

Many adaptations of Stephen King novels exist--on film or television--that aren't very good. It is quite frankly just really, really difficult to translate masterful textual stories onto the big screen. But even amidst that mediocrity, Firestarter might be the worst effort I've ever beheld.

For a very basic overview, Firestarter tells the story of young Charlie McGee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), a girl imbued with pyro-kinetic mental abilities--in other words, the ability to create/control fire. Hidden away from society by a father (Zac Efron) & mother (Sydney Lemmon) who perpetuated her condition as part of a collegiate experiment, they are eventually found out and pursued by a shadowy government agency and mercenary Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) in particular.

Skipping right to the point, 2022's Firestarter intentionally undercuts everything that makes the novel retain any sort of iconic status. Some examples:

-The Lot Six experiment flashbacks (with college-age Mr. & Mrs. McGee) are some of the most compelling material in the book. Here? Relegated to opening-credit background filler.

-The tension between whether or not Charlie should train herself to control her special abilities? Used in a couple of 30-second snippets and then discarded entirely.

-One of the book's hallmarks was the separation (over a long period of time) of Charlie and her beloved father, which sets up a perfect slow-burn to the explosive climax. That isn't even attempted here--instead, all that material is laughable condensed into the film's final 15-20 minutes.

I am very rarely tempted to stoop to 1-star level on any entertainment property, but this movie came dangerously close. The only reason I even bumped it up to 2-stars? Because Efron was perfectly cast and would have been perfect for his role, had not the entire thing around him been a flame-out (pardon the pun).

In short, Firestarter is simply a hollowed-out vehicle for utilizing the King name (and, oddly enough, a John Carpenter-and-son score) to get a few eyeballs. I hate being that crass, but this film deserves it. Not one ounce of care was put into the crafting of interesting characters or plot pacing.

Lately when I watch a new movie, I ask myself "how would this movie be without it's special effects?". Too many movies get by on shiney and sparkley colors on the screen for a large part of the movie.

If you do that here, you don't even have an average movie.

What happened to Hollywood in terms of smart writing? I'd throw acting in there too, but I think it's unfair to judge actors when they have the scripts and writing they're dealing with now. I'm not even sure how they can say many of the lines with a straight face, so that's impressive I guess.

If you literally have nothing else to do, this would be ok to have on in the background.

Very poor, poor effects, poor story, cheesy, so disappointed with this. If you are going to remake a cult classic, then have a look at what made it a classic to start. This is just a lifeless boring sham. If you loved the original film, give this a miss, if you haven't seen the original, then it might just about keep you awake.

I should have known better than to be the least bit excited for this. This was bad. The original, was one of my favorite movies when I was young. I was hoping they improved on that. I don't know why. With the exception of Dune (as that's all that comes to mind right now) remakes have traditionally been bad, overall. I don't know why I thought this would be any different. They did very little marketing before it was out. Which is usually an indication that they don't even have faith in their own movie. I should have known better.

Firestarter is a film that feels cheap, looks ugly and manages to be rushed yet still feel boring and needlessly slow. It doesn't really succeed at any genre either, with only a few cheap jump scares as a horror and it definitely fails as a superhero movie.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong does her best with weak material and almost makes it work. It's nice to see Zac Efron in a more dramatic role once again but he's also let down by such bland and lifeless stuff. However, Kurtwood Smith's brief appearance is great and threatens to give the film some actual energy.

Thankfully it is mercifully short and the music by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davis is fantastic, easily the best part of the film. It's infinitely better than anything actually happening and tricks you into thinking something actually interesting might happen.