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.