Firestarter

Hollywood has generated many solid adaptations of best-selling author Stephen King's work. This isn't one of them.

His duty is to sound the “Last Trumpet,” signally the destruction of the Earth and its troublesome inhabitants on Judgement Day. Though the fanciful farce is quite funny, the movie didn’t do great at the box office, and Benny used it as a running joke on his radio and TV shows for years. It’s a must-see for any serious film fan, but let’s focus on the lesser known “The Horn Blows at Midnight.” Walsh got his start acting in silent films in 1909 before transitioning to the director’s chair after he lost his right eye in a freak automobile accident in which a jackrabbit crashed through the windshield of his automobile. Director Keith Thomas’ dark, comic-bookish take on the novel is a poorly constructed film, lacking characterization, detail, purpose, and thrust. The movie never connects emotionally and barrels through its relatively sparse hour-and-a-half running time.

What are critics saying about the reboot of Firestarter, the newest Stephen King adaptation? Check out the reviews!

You can also see what other upcoming Stephen King book-to-screen adaptations are in the works, and check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what else is coming soon to theaters. The first half builds the characters and sets the stakes, but the second half feels rushed and haphazard so that none of the emotional payoff lands, this review argues. The original movie staying fairly loyal to the source material allows this movie to make changes that should surprise even die-hard Stephen King fans:

He, his wife Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) and daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong)—the role made famous by a wee Drew Barrymore—all possess supernatural abilities ...

Firestarter is a soulless remake of an already iffy Stephen King adaptation that only makes changes for the worse. There are fewer hordes of agents on Andy’s heels and less time spent on the loving relationship between father and daughter. Zac Efron steps into the shoes of Andy McGee, a telepath gifted with powers during a U.S. government experimentation program. How can a film hinged on bursts of illuminating heat be such a dimly lit, overly darkened representation of lesser choices whenever Teems dares deviate from the already dodgy source inspiration? Scott Teems’ one-dimensional screenplay becomes a chore as Andy and Charlie McGee flee from secret government agencies without the thrill of pursuit. Keith Thomas’ The Vigil is an extraordinary examination of Jewish demonology; his lifeless Firestarter extinguishes any flames of intrigue that 1984’s hammier version might inspire.

For a movie about a girl with pyrokinetic powers, “ Firestarter ” is lacking a certain spark. This new adaptation of Stephen King's 1980 novel is not scary ...

Ryan Kiera Armstrong takes on the role of Charlie, who is a bit of an introvert and a social outcast in her school. She’s not allowed to have a phone or the Internet, and she’s been told by her father to simply repress her scary fire-starting powers. Based on how pristine her inexplicably barrel-curled hair looks for most of the film, though, it seems that those in charge might have been more concerned with the aesthetics than the performance. Why anyone would want to resurrect this particular property is a bit of a mystery, beyond the fact that some might have a misplaced fondness for it because they saw it at an impressionable age. No, this outing is a dull slog, even with its cool, synthy John Carpenter score and the should’ve-been-inspired decision to cast Zac Efron as the father of the flame-throwing preteen. Roger Ebert wrote that its “crucial flaw is the lack of a strong point to the story.

The new adaptation of Stephen King's best-selling novel is all fizzle, no sizzle.

He kills Vicky and manages to finally nab Andy in a compressed version of events from the book, while Charlie ultimately comes for the Shop with vengeance on her mind. But this Firestarter doesn’t even try; Charlie simply arrives at the rather threadbare Shop HQ and torches a handful of extras before the baffling ending. In one especially horrific scene, Charlie accidentally fries a cat with her power; her dad comes along and teaches her to control the flames by using them on the still-living cat. So sure, put her in public school, where kids bully and tease anyone who seems shy or out of place, like Charlie does (Armstrong is okay, but doesn’t seem sure of how to play the role). Vicky is already dead when King opens his novel, murdered by Shop operatives, and Andy and Charlie stay on the road under assumed names with the Shop on their tails. The substances give Andy and Vicky limited psychic and telekinetic powers, but turn their daughter Charlie into a literal weapon, providing her with the ability to start fires with her mind.

Zac Efron stars as the father of a girl, Charlie, who is learning to control her powers.

Zac Efron pays Andy, Charlie’s father, and he’s got powers, too — with a twitch of the neck, he can cloud people’s minds. This movie brushes aside a lot of things — the most shocking thing about it is how soggily noncommittal it is. The first “ Firestarter” (1984) starred a not-yet-10-year-old Drew Barrymore as a girl who can start fires — with her mind, which makes all the difference.

Photo: Universal Picture Au premier acte, avec Charlie qui cache ses dons, à l'instar de ses parents qui participèrent jadis à des essais cliniques suspects ...

Carpenter réalisa à la place, pour un studio concurrent, l’une des meilleures adaptations d’un roman de Stephen King (signant pour l’occasion l’une de ses meilleures musiques) : Christine (1983). Le troisième acte, très court, s’écarte pour sa part complètement de la trame originelle. Idem au deuxième acte, lorsque père et fille fuient les sbires de l’agence en question, qui a retracé la famille.

Not even Zac Efron and a killer John Carpenter score can light up this damp Stephen King adaptation. NOW STREAMING: Powered by JustWatch.

Some of the film’s more interesting moments revolve around Rainbird, and Michael Greyeyes gives the most compelling performance. The fact that NBC Universal held screeners back until the last possible moment speaks to Firestarter’s entertainment quotient more than any review ever could. I won’t spoil the ending, but if Charlie had an online store she’d be selling shirts that say “I burned down The Shop and all I got was this new dad.” Charlie’s attack on The Shop bears some delightful carnage, but even that feels too little, too late. Vicky has a telekinetic ability she almost never uses, while Andy has the ability to “push” people to do his bidding. Unfortunately, everything after that initial showdown is a lifeless slog. But everything in between these points of light is as exciting as an untoasted cheese sandwich.

Le remake de 2022 de Stephen King Allume feu, réalisé par Keith Thomas, met en vedette un casting d'acteurs vétérans et de tout nouveaux jeunes talents.

Michael Greyeyes est apparu dans des séries télévisées telles que Craindre le mort-vivant, Vrai détective, les chutes de Rutherford, et Accueil avant la tombée de la nuit. Le capitaine Hollister est le chef de The Shop et sert d’antagoniste catalyseur du film. Elle a joué dans des films tels que Ça Chapitre Deux et La guerre de demain et la série télévisée Histoire d’horreur américaine et Anne avec un E. Zac Efron est devenu un grand acteur dans sa carrière post-Disney. Il a joué dans des films tels que Extrêmement méchant, incroyablement mauvais et vil, le plus grand showmanet Ce moment génant. Allume feu fera ses débuts sur la plateforme de streaming Peacock et dans certaines salles le vendredi 13 mai. Il prend l’idée d’un enfant avec des pouvoirs de type mutant et le met dans un film sombre classé R.

Keith Thomas' adaptation of 'Firestarter' struggles to find relevance in a world heavily steeped in its source's influence.

Even if one had made the perfect adaptation of King’s novel, to the point that folks would shout hosannas from the rooftops at your favorite genre film festival provided that it premiered there, it would still have to prevail against the kind of deja vu-like indifference that emerges when someone watches a film that reminds them of other and more memorable films that came about in a perfect cultural storm and commanded the moment’s attention. It’s one thing to be skeptical and fearful of power this great in the hands of a child, but the one stroke of genius that Mark L. Lester had in casting Drew Barrymore in the original was that she was heavily emotive, even if she wasn’t given as much to do as she could have. There’s a sad soulfulness that Lester was able to draw from, and the film is cognizant of it: Just look at the differences between the posters for each Firestarter. One emphasizes the fundamental childishness of the character — a vacant gaze, familiar to most parents, that all children show when do not understand the cruelty they wreak upon the world — while the other has her practically grimacing at the camera and viewer as if to suggest that she, not the world she inhabits, is the thing to be feared. The third is the more intangible and out of Thomas’ control, and I don’t fault him for this at all, but Firestarter, unlike something like Carrie, is a narrative that has been wholly absorbed into the culture at large to the point that it feels generic. It’s just too smooth and dark to become atmospheric in a home environment, to say nothing of what it must be like in a theater. The first is the film’s look, which is digitally desaturated and bisexually-lit in the way that a lot of cheaper horror projects are nowadays: it looks fundamentally generic, especially in comparison to the original, which was still shot on film and retains a real texture.

Andy and Vicky McGee (Zac Efron and Sydney Lemmon) fell in love during an experimental drug trial for telepaths overseen by a shadowy government agency known as ...

That can’t be said about the disorientingly hazy shallow-focus photography, which reflects a sense of paranoia building up within the characters, if to a distracting extent. For one, it seemed as if it could only grow in cultural cachet, as the 1984 film version is considered even by King to be among the worst adaptations of one of his books. Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben), who’s been searching for Andy and Vicky since Charlie’s birth, is alerted to the family’s whereabouts after Charlie, a social outcast, unleashes her powers in terrifying fashion during a game of dodgeball.

Zac Efron tries his best in an otherwise regrettable retread of the horror author's tale of a girl with superpowers.

Scott Teems’s drearily perfunctory script is at least not as howlingly bad as his script for Halloween Kills, a small mercy, although both films bizarrely share John Carpenter in charge of the music, his throwback synth score working at odds with Thomas’s pedestrian aesthetic. While the original is far from indispensable (it’s also rather dull), at the very least it provided a showcase for a young Drew Barrymore, who gave a typically precocious and persuasive performance. It’s perhaps why the arrival of Firestarter is even more of a bore, retelling a story we know all too well and don’t need to hear yet again.

A film that goes through the motions with such apathetic predictability and pure cinematic laziness that you may want to set whatever device you're watching ...

It’s often hard to decipher what the hell is happening when things are supposed to be getting intense and director Keith Thomas does a miserable job with geography (largely because of the close-up, reverse shot structure that never puts two people in a frame in a room). “Firestarter” just looks cheap—in most ways, cheaper than the 1984 version—with no memorable craft elements or decisions outside of a cool, ‘80s score from John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies. The score deserved a movie that knew how to use it more effectively and with tighter visual language. The Stephen King novel on which the new version of “Firestarter” is based was published in 1980 during a phase of the horror master’s career in which the writer seemed fascinated by kids with inexplicable powers. When Charlie and dad get home, they discover how hot it really is for the now and go on the run. There is no better recent example of this than “Firestarter,” a film that goes through the motions with such apathetic predictability and pure cinematic laziness that you may want to set whatever device you’re watching it on ablaze. Charlie, played by Drew Barrymore in the 1984 film and Ryan Kiera Armstrong in this one, is cut from similar cloth as Danny from “ The Shining” and the title character in “Carrie”—people who discover they’re not like normal kids.

Not even Zac Efron and a killer John Carpenter score can light up this damp Stephen King adaptation. NOW STREAMING: Powered by JustWatch.

Some of the film’s more interesting moments revolve around Rainbird, and Michael Greyeyes gives the most compelling performance. The fact that NBC Universal held screeners back until the last possible moment speaks to Firestarter’s entertainment quotient more than any review ever could. I won’t spoil the ending, but if Charlie had an online store she’d be selling shirts that say “I burned down The Shop and all I got was this new dad.” Charlie’s attack on The Shop bears some delightful carnage, but even that feels too little, too late. Vicky has a telekinetic ability she almost never uses, while Andy has the ability to “push” people to do his bidding. Unfortunately, everything after that initial showdown is a lifeless slog. But everything in between these points of light is as exciting as an untoasted cheese sandwich.

For a movie about a girl with pyrokinetic powers, “ Firestarter ” is lacking a certain spark. This new adaptation of Stephen King's 1980 novel is not scary ...

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