Firestarter Quick Movie Review
Based on the 1980 Stephen King’s novel of the same name, the 2022 movie “Firestarter” looks like it was made in the 1990s and it’s not a compliment. Directed by Keith Thomas, the film’s plot has been tweaked to set it in the times of wi-fi and smartphones, but for a story about a girl with pyrokinetic powers, the film is very dimly-lit and dull.
The plot is pretty simple: Charlie McGee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is born to a couple who participated in a research program that gave them supernatural powers, and she inherits the ability to set things on fire with her mind. While Charlie’s mom, Vicky (Sydney Lemmon), thinks the little girl should be trained to use her power, protective dad Andy (Zac Efron) believes it’s best for her to suppress them to avoid attention. However, an explosion at school brings Charlie under scrutiny and the McGee family is at danger of becoming lab rats.
If you’ve read the original novel, then definitely do not watch this live-action adaptation, because it is completely lifeless. The dimly lit cinematography exacerbates the issues, and aside from mentioning “wi-fi” and “google,” the creators make no effort to modernize the plot. Setting the film in the ’80s might have been a better choice, but given the minimal effort put into this 2022 version, that would be expecting too much. As far as the special effects with the fire scenes are concerned, they aren’t too bad.
“Firestarter” clocks in at just 90 minutes, limiting character development, yet shorter films have managed more fleshed-out protagonists. At first, it looked like the movie might offer a poignant father-daughter relationship, with Andy trying to mentor Charlie amid all their troubles, but there’s little emotional connection between Zac Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong. Despite its potential for horror, “Firestarter” falls short of expectations, ending up as just another forgettable horror/sci-fi film that perhaps didn’t need a big-screen adaptation. Watch it only if you have run out of interesting horror titles.
Rating: 4 on 10. You can watch Firestarter on Netflix.
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