[Rating: Rock Fist Way Down]
Now in theaters and streaming on Peacock.
How hard is it to adapt Stephen King’s novels? As a big fan of his works, he literally presents to you everything there is to adapt into a successful, scary, eerie, and fun movie. However, in recent years there’s been ups and downs to his pantheon, especially in the remake area. A new installment in the canon, Firestarter (directed by Keith Thomas) is a new adaptation of King’s novel that feels so rushed and unnecessary, I laughed at watching a little girl burn people alive. Shame!
The story of Firestarter is straightforward from the novel. The McGee family, dad Andrew (Zac Efron) and mom Vicky (Sydney Lemmon), live a seemingly normal life with young daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong). When Charlie was a baby however, a mysterious fire occurred in her crib. It is revealed that young Charlie has the power of pyrokinesis and is able to start fires, normally when she gets overwhelmed or upset at others. This leads to an incident at school that will soon set off a chain of events for the family that causes their lives to change forever. We learn Andrew and Vicky were once part of a college lab experiment where mysterious chemicals altered their DNA and gave them powers that they then passed along to Charlie. In order to keep their secret, the family must run from their home while being pursued by Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben), a doctor who knows of the secret testing of Andrew and Vicky, and John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes), a bounty hunter in search of Charlie.
This all actually sounds pretty fun, right? However, what sets Firestarter apart from most of King’s newer adaptations is how boring it is. I know this story and I know that at the heart of it, it’s a story of family and survival. However, I could never connect to the characters and did not care if any of them were taken away from one another. I laughed my ass off at Charlie telling a woman “liar liar, pants on fire”, immediately before encenerating her. This movie feels like it was made just because somebody said they could. A movie based on the master of horror literature should not be laughable. It should consist of uncomfortable laughter, of which this movie does not have.
Stick to watching the original adaptation of this story as it adds more layers of sinister feelings through Hollister’s character tricking Charlie to be friends, of which this film does not have. Charlie doesn’t get a whole lot to do in this except make quick remarks and blow people up.
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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