Firestarter Review

During my viewing of "Firestarter," a remake of the 1984 adaptation of the 1980 Stephen King novel, a fruit fly buzzed by constantly. Working alone, or with friends? I don't know, but it's persistence was a distraction I welcomed- this film is a real dud, a failure on its one mission: being scary.

I guess that's not entirely fair- IMDB credits it a "drama" and "sci-fi," in addition to "horror," but look folks, with the original novel's author and production company Blumhouse, yes we expected scares, and there is not a single one here. There's no tension, thrills, or logic either, but one step at a time please.

First, let's address something: I have neither read the book or seen the earlier flick. This allowed me to go in fresh, and what I got in return was stale.

The plot, oh yes, it's so obviously classic Stephen King: a little girl Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), is bullied at school (in a silly attempt to update things, one of the teases is for "not having Google"), but she holds a secret. A power really, the power to set fire to things using her mind. Her parents Andy and Vicky (Zac Efron and Sydney Lemmon, respectively), who have their own special abilities, are worried that she's unable to control it, and live in constant fear of "bad people." These "bad people" include the vague villain Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben); she operates a big boring grey building the internet tells is "The Shop," and wants to "study" her. Why? I'm guessing it's because that's where the family's superpowers came from, but I really have no idea, and I don't think she does either.

Really, the whole plot is a riff on King's debut offering "Carrie," although "Firestarter's" director Keith Thomas glosses over characterization in favor of benign dialogue and lots of admittedly impressive fire VFX. There's one scene where Charlie, sorry pet lovers, kills a stray cat for scratching her. It's a dark moment that's tonally incompatible with the rest of the picture, but it stands out as about the only thing I can remember after the credits rolled. 

It's a brief display of something, be it pleasant to watch or not, and the end results are frustratingly boring. The heroine otherwise just makes angry faces while special effects handle the rest of her personality.

Oh, I would be remiss not to mention a cameo by veteran Kurtwood Smith, but he's great in everything he does. Playing Dr. Joseph Wanless, former bigwig of the big bad corporation, he's here to offer doomy warnings about the girl, all while he dumps out Pixie Stix candies. The dude really knows how to make the most with such limited screen time.

Senior Year Review

Rebel Wilson is a natural talent- she has the ability to be funny without doing anything, elevating whatever material she has to work with. In her latest movie "Senior Year," transcends the treacle plot and imbues honesty and care into what is essentially a joke character.

She plays Steph, a woman who's awoken from a coma, finding she's almost forty but never finished her, ahem, senior year of high school. In a most sitcom level narrative, she decides to return there and win prom queen, get popular, yada yada yada. Again, this is all basic stuff with, a hodgepodge of themes lifted from other movies and shows, but we're not here to make a case study on the believability of the script; we're here to laugh, and thanks mostly to our shiny lead, we do and do frequently.

A bit of comedic mileage comes from her adjusting to 2022, from cell phones to language about inclusion, about everything you'd expect, but it doesn't take too long before she's using her "Insta" to get followers. If anything, it reminds me how much I hated high school, and much I hate social media. (Oh and don't forget to "like and subscribe," readers!)

It doesn't make sense how quickly she's adjusted to the new decade, and there was a lot of wasted potential here; it's just an excuse to provide secondary conflict, where she needs to work to get the present comparable to the past, and that narrative copout hurts. 

There's the old rival (Zoë Chao), the former flame (Justin Hartley), the friend who wants to be more than "just" friends (Sam Richardson), all the usual ingredients. And when first time director Alex Hardcastle finds his rhythm, "Senior Year" is really, genuinely funny. But he can't maintain a proper balance between humor and drama.

I mean, "Senior Year" is essentially an underdog tale about "looking forward" and "being who you really are- that's great, and Steph's backstory about her mom's passing to cancer is tragic. But so what? Any emotional weight is constantly undermined by jokes involving, but by no means limited to, dildos, puking, and infidelity (though surprisingly not all at once). Oh yeah, and often in a high school setting within earshot of teenagers.

I'm not adverse to mature comedy, but these scenes are glaring against moments of 1980's coming-to-age sappiness. If you're going to give me fresh jokes, give me a fresh story!

By failing to invest in anybody in the picture, I essentially sat back and waited for the next punchline: a feature-length window dressing to showcase Rebel Wilson's talents. Yet for how good she is here, nobody seems to learn that just referencing something from the past doesn't make it relevant in the present. As for what the future holds? Well, all I can tell you is that, no, I will probably not win prom queen.