Revived Storm Boy a shadow of the original

Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Finn Little, Jai Courtney, Erik Thomsen, Morgana Davies. All beak and no bite makes this pelican a peli-can’t

IF the new rendition of Storm Boy were nothing more than a plucky kid running up and down a beach with his trusty pet pelican in tow, then it would have been a fine little film.

Just like the endearing 1976 screen adaptation of the beloved Colin Thiele book, both of which hold a special significance for many Australians.

However, this version of Storm Boy has grafted on some pretentious present-day piffle about Storm Boy as an old bloke.

An old bloke who is now a multi-millionaire corporate type who is on the cusp of approving a deal that will trash a huge tract of farmland on behalf of his mining interests.

The old bloke — let’s call him Storm Boy Sr (Geoffrey Rush) spends the movie casting his mind back to the good old days when there was nothing more to life than, well, running up and down a beach with a bird.

It is not unfair to state that Rush’s prominence in Storm Boy is an unnecessary distraction, and not just because of the well-chronicled troubles he has been experiencing of late.

If anything, it is the listless, heavy performance supplied by Rush — easily one of the weakest of his career — that hauls Storm Boy towards its inevitably grim, grey-skies outcome.

For many younger viewers, sitting through all the dreary adult concerns will be like being asked to do their homework, eat their vegetables and clean up their room, all at once.

However, when the movie backs away fully from its own “fresh” material and reverts to the simplicity of Thiele’s book, it can become an involving and quietly blissful affair.