‘Firestarter’ remake fails to ignite
For a movie about a girl with pyrokinetic powers, “Firestarter “is lacking a certain spark.
This new adaptation of Stephen King's 1980 novel is not scary or thrilling, nor is it emotionally resonant or particularly moving. No, this outing is a dull slog, even with its cool, synthy John Carpenter score and the should've-been-inspired decision to cast Zac Efron as the father of the flamethrowing preteen.
But “Firestarter” might not have had much to live up to in the first place. The 1984 film, which starred Drew Barrymore and David Keith as the daughter-father pair, was not exactly well-received. Roger Ebert wrote that its “crucial flaw is the lack of a strong point to the story. A little girl has her dangerous power, some government agents want to examine her, others want to destroy her, and things catch on fire. That's about it.” The original source material isn't one of King's most beloved either.
Why anyone would want to resurrect this particular property is a bit of a mystery, beyond the fact that some might have a misplaced fondness for it because they saw it at an impressionable age. One of the best things that can be said about this iteration, written by Scott Teems and directed by Keith Thomas, is that it neither adds nor subtracts anything from “Firestarter's” lackluster history (though it does jettison the pedophile undertones of a crucial character). But on the whole, it just once again takes something that should be creepy and thrilling and makes it dreary.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong takes on the role of Charlie, who is a bit of an introvert and a social outcast in her school. She's not allowed to have a phone or the Internet, and she's been told by her father to simply repress her scary fire-starting powers. But questions are rising (hormones too) and there's jerks and bullies around too and the fire comes out at inopportune times. The mom, Vicky, played by Sydney Lemmon thinks it'd be better to teach the kid how to use the powers instead of abstaining completely, but she's overruled and pretty soon, it's just Andy (Efron) and Charlie on the run.
Perhaps we've just seen too many better homages at this point and there wasn't a great reason to take another shot at “Firestarter.” Besides, even if it's lacking in originality, it's also lacking something even more important: A personality.
“Firestarter,” a Universal Pictures release now in theaters and on Peacock+, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for “violent content.” Running time: 96 minutes.