Sometimes I picture William Shakespeare as an immortal living in our time and saying things like, “Who in Stratford-upon-Avon thought MacBeth didn’t own any furniture?!” Except, of course, Billy Playwright doesn’t have it nearly as bad as he could. Writing horror is one thing, but true horror is watching your words come to life through the dicey vehicles of Emilio Estevez, Shelley Duvall, or in this case, Zac Efron. Yes, Stephen King, nothing announces “I’m a living legend” quite like your mediocre adaptation being remade even worse and starring Zac Efron.
Only a few months old, li’l baby Charlie set fire to the mobile above her crib, a feat –I’m ashamed to say- my own daughter did not accomplish until she was almost a full year. The parents don’t seem nearly as alarmed as I might be. So the film gives us what it considers “background” with pre-parent mom Victoria (Sydney Lemmon) and pre-parent dad Andrew (Efron) allowing themselves to be guinea pigs.
Neither the direction nor plot is clear here, but wiki says the experiments gave Victoria telekinesis and Andrew telepathy. These experiments obviously altered their DNA as well because they bred a child who can set fires with her mind. Ooooooooo. That kinda beats most kid tantrums and ultimatums, huh? Holding your breath until you turn blue doesn’t have quite the same impact as: “I’ll set fire to the block if I don’t get ice cream.”
The film skips over that awkward toddler phase and goes straight to the part where the government needs to kill the child cuz … power. Charlie (Ryan Keira Armstrong) is now 11 and constantly seems a hairsbreadth away from setting My Little Pony or whatever on fire. One critical and extremely unsatisfying mistake Firestarter makes is introducing Charlie’s school bully yet ne
ver letting Charlie destroy him.
Firestarter also left on the cutting room floor any reaction of Victoria’s death by husband or child. Mom dies, but apparently this fact is out of the mind of both father and child by the following morning. Oh, Ok. Well, isn’t that nice? Say, is depthlessness of emotion a side-effect of enhanced mental acuity … or is this just a shitty screenplay? For the life of me, I cannot remember a single scene in this film that didn’t end without me wondering either who wrote or who edited this thing? The acting in Firestarter is miserable, but it’s hard to beat an unnecessarily complicated plot for screwing with enjoyment.
Look, it’s simple: the kid can set things on fire; her parents try to control it; the government sees this as a threat. There you are. Now why are you introducing a bully without showing us how our protagonist uses her power to flame the little punk? This film left me so empty that I wondered if the source material were rotten. Anybody here read Firestarter? Was this book a complete afterthought among a sea of early King classics?
Stephen King has now lapped himself; few great authors live long enough to see multiple works come to life; Stephen has now seen entire generational remakes of some of his works. If you tell him Firestarter blew flaming red chunks, you have to specify which Firestarter. This film hardly the first King remake and certainly won’t be the last. I’m not sure this is a good thing. As I said above, immortal Shakespeare would probably get jaded by the entire process … but at least Shakespeare will never be alive to see his words acted out by Zac Efron.
It’s telekinesis and telepathy in a daze
When a powergirl goes through an arson phase
Some might claim she’s blessed
But I’m not impressed
Find me when her mind writes screenplays
Rated R, 94 Minutes
Director: Keith Thomas
Writer: Scott Teems
Genre: Oh goody, more Stephen King
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: I dunno, pyromaniacs maybe?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Horror fans
