Released: May 2022
Director: Keith Thomas
Rated R
Run Time: 94 Minutes
Distributor: Universal Studios
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Zach Efron: Andy McGee
Ryan Kiera Armstrong: Charlie McGee
Sydney Lemmon: Vicky McGee
Michael Greyeyes: Rainbird
Gloria Reuben: Captain Hollister
Kurtwood Smith: Dr. Wanless
Adaptations are an extremely tricky thing. Especially if you’re making the movie based on a book. There’s a lot of things that you need to juggle with adaptations. What do you keep in the movie? What do you jettison? Not everything that’s in the book can be translated to the big screen. It usually doesn’t work. You can’t expect it to, because they are two very different mediums. There are a lot of adaptations out there that are serviceable. Some are great, and others are absolutely abysmal. Lord of the Rings, Shawshank Redemption, War of the Worlds, Dune(2021) and 2000 Leagues Under The Sea are some of the best book-to-movie adaptations ever made. When you have the right film-maker and writers involved, adaptations can be brilliant. Otherwise, you end up with movies like Dreamcatcher, The Hobbit, or The Lost World: Jurassic Park. These movies aren’t very good. Usually, bad decision-making is involved. Sadly, I have another butchered adaptation to throw on the pile: This year’s version of Firestarter.
The story of Firestarter involves a young girl with pyrokinetic abilities that’s on the run from a mysterious government organization. The story is based on a Stephen King novel of the same name, and it’s not a bad story at all. It’s actually about a young girl and her father that both have extraordinary abilities that don’t want to be exploited by the government. One of the great things about Stephen King’s stories is that they are always centered around people, so you can connect with them. This new movie fails on nearly every conceivable level. I had heard that Firestarter was going to get a day-and-date release. What that means is that a movie is released on VOD the same time it’s released in theaters. When the pandemic was in full swing, that was really the only way that studios could get their movies out. They ended up losing a lot of money, because nobody was going to theaters. Now, when we see a movie that’s released on VOD and in theaters at the same time, that’s usually for one reason, and one reason alone: The studio has NO faith in that particular movie. Ladies and gents, here’s a movie that should’ve gone straight to VOD…and that’s how I watched it. On Peacock.
I want to talk about the good stuff first, because there isn’t a whole lot, but I have to give credit where it’s due. The acting is, for the most part, pretty good. Zach Efron plays Andy McGee, young Charlie’s father, and he was pretty convincing as someone who has the ability to take control of people’s minds. Ryan Kiera Armstrong is the standout performer here as Charlie. She’s simply fantastic as the young girl who is going through some…issues. I would imagine YOU would have issues too if you had the ability to set people on fire with your mind. Outside of those two actors, everything about this movie is a complete disaster. Firestarter commits one of the greatest sins that a movie can make: It’s BORING. Sure, when people start using their powers, it gets a little interesting, but the pacing is all over the place. When it slows down, it slows WAY down. For a movie that’s an hour and a half long, it feels double that.
While I’m not going to say that the 1984 film was a classic by any means, it really wasn’t, but the film actually followed the plot of the book pretty closely. This adaptation bares almost NO resemblance to either the book or the original film. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that some changes have to be made to adapt a book into movie. That’s fine, but when you start changing certain characters around and giving them powers that they didn’t have in the source material, it becomes in issue. In the book and the original movie, Charlie only had pyrokinesis. In this version, she’s inherited her mother’s telekinetic powers and her father’s “push” ability which is to “influence” people. In the hands of better film-makers and writers, this could’ve been really interesting. Here, it’s not. It just comes across as another cheap superhero origin story. Even one of the villains flat-out tells Charlie that she could be a superhero. Really? The mind boggles at the decision-making here. Oh, let’s also not forget another huge issue that I have with this movie. For a movie called Firestarter, there’s not a whole lot of fire-starting going on. Most of the carnage that happens in this movie is off-screen. While the 1984 movie had it’s issues, it didn’t skimp on the carnage. Shit exploded and people were set on fire. It’s like the film-makers were afraid to make this movie as batshit crazy as its concept. Also, the effects are terrible. There are some fairly gruesome images, but a lot of it is CGI, and it’s painfully obvious. It’s clear that they didn’t have the budget to really convey the kind of power that Charlie has. Even the 2002 Sci-Fi Channel sequel series did more with the concept than this movie. The climax of the movie is dull as ditchwater, and what they did with Michael Greyeyes’ Rainbird is completely unearned.
So, yeah, I don’t like this movie. At all. It’s not just a bad movie, it’s a bad adaptation. The writing is god-awful, and with the exception of Zach Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong, there’s nothing really redeemable about this movie. The villains are cardboard cut-out government bad guys that we’ve seen a million times before. The 6 bucks that I paid to get the limited ads deal on Peacock is more than this movie deserves, but I’m getting a lot more bang for my buck, because of the other movies and stuff on that service. If you want a decent adaption of Stephen King’s Firestarter, stick with the 1984 movie with Drew Barrymore, David Keith, and Martin Sheen. It’s SOOOO much better. If you’re curious, you can check out the follow-up sequel Firestarter: Rekindled. It’s not great, but it’s still better than this stinker.