‘How can you still be helping them after everything they have done to you?’
Firestarter is one of the weaker books of Stephen King’s golden era and when taking this into account the 1984 film version starring Drew Barrymore is actually pretty good. It’s flawed, sure, but it’s a solid adaptation of an average book. While there is definitely scope for a more successful modern update, this is categorically not it…
As this is essentially the third time I’m writing a plot synopsis for this story (having written a review of both the source material and the first film adaptation) I’m just going to copy and paste it across from a previous review. Feel free to skip it:
After volunteering for a medical experiment, Andy McGee (Zac Efron) and Vicky Tomlinson (Sydney Lemmon) fall in love, get married and have a kid. After they develop strange powers, it is clear that their daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is more powerful than anyone could have dreamed. The Shop, a shady government organisation led by the unscrupulous Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben), pursues Andrew and Charlie through a crazed half-Indian hitman named John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes).
This is, and I can’t stress this enough, an utterly pointless film. A remake of an average film based on an average book. Why is this happening? Efron, woefully miscast, delivers a stinker here, and every other cast member is either forgettable or downright bad. Scott Teems, the man behind both Halloween Kills and Insidious: The Red Door (two other mostly bad films), crafts a story that is riddled with cliches, a downgrade on the source material and just incredibly dull. Director Keith Thomas shows about as much visual flair as a cat trying to master origami and even John Carpenter’s mesmerizing score, admittedly brilliant in isolation, doesn’t match up with the uneven tone of the movie. Armstrong does her best in the Drew Barrymore role, but she is given so little to work with that this film has probably done her career more harm than good.
There is no godly reason for Firestarter (2022) to exist. It strips away all the best things about the book and leaves behind a charred and smoking husk. One of the very worst Stephen King adaptations.