Waiting for the Fire to Start...

Firestarter is the second feature film for director Keith Thomas and a remake of the 1984 film directed by Mark L. Lesterand features Drew Barrymire and David Keith. Inspired by Stephen King’s Firestarter, I unfortnately havent seen the 1984 film, however, the remake was very lackluster and doesnt make me want to watch the original nor read the book. Although the film stars the likes of Zac Efron, he unfortunately couldn’t save this film.

Spoiler Description of the Plot:

Starting off with a baby in a cott that cause a fire, but saved by their father’s suspitious sense, the visuals immedietly impressed me. A flash-forward occurs to the young girl now in school getting picked on by some classmates. Mrs Gardener, played by Tina Jung, questions if Charlie McGee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is alright as she tries to control her superpower. Her mum and dad, Andy and Vicky (Zac Efron and Sydney Lemon) try their hardest to avoid an outburst, however, the next day in school, she continues to get picked on by the bullies which results in an explosion in the bathroom, flinging Mrs Gardener backwards.

Due to the explosion, an alert by a federal agency is sparked resulting in the captain, Captain Jane Hollister (Gloria Reuben), sending another special ability man to deal with the family. When he arrives at the house, he only finds Vicky, who he unforunately kills resulting in another outburst by Charlie, when she return home and uncover the body of her mother. As they have been comprimised, Andy and Charlie begin to try and escape by hitchiking with a local famrer, Irv Manders (John Beasley). They spend the night at the farmers house until a newstory of what happend to Vicky plays, putting the blame on Andy and causes suspicion on Andy. Irv calls the police, however, John Rainbird, the hunter, shoots all the policemen and the secret agency come and clean up his mess. Andy gets captured, but Charlie escapes.

However, Charlie returns to the prison that are holding her father where he tells her to burn the place down to the ground. She does this, burning everyone in her way until she reaches John Rainbird where she decides to spare his life and they leave together.

Honestly, not alot about this film was good. The visual effects for certain things, like the blood coming from the eyes and the firery explosions whenever Charlie has an outburst, were impressive. The acting i thought in this film was mediocre, apart from Ryan Kiera Armstong who had the lead role of playing Charlie and Sydney Lemmon, who played Vicky Tomlinson-McGee. Zac Efron, I thought, didnt do a stand out perfromance and for a man of his stature, i expected a bit more.

Despite this, Firestarter has its flaws. The major flaw, I found, was that the plot was lackluster and went nowhere, the script was quite poor with a finishing line being “lier, lier, pants on fire,” which was more cringey than anything else. With that being said, this makes the film rather forgetable with a very poor ending and cinematography that wasn’t anything special. Overall, a forgetable mess.

2/5: PASS.