Plot fails to ignite
NOT EVEN ZAC EFRON CAN HEAT THINGS UP IN THIS 1980S MOVIE REMAKE
FIRESTARTER (M)
Director: Keith Thomas (The Vigil) Starring: Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Zac Efron, Sydney Lemmon, Michael Greyeyes.
Rating:
A lot of arson about
You remember the original Firestarter from the 1980s, right?
That was the cheesy horror hit where a cute little eight-year-old girl with a lisp burned certain sinister adults to a crisp. With her mind.
The premise was simple, and so was the movie: you get on this pyrokinetic kid’s nerves, and you’re gonna be toast.
These smoky shenanigans billowed from the mind of author Stephen King, whose books have generated many a mainstream horror flick across the decades.
Modern audiences with hazyto-no recollections of the original whatsoever will see the new Firestarter exactly for what it is: a pointless, if passable, remake of something that didn’t really need to happen.
The movie’s highly combustible lead character is Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), a frowny primary schooler with the aforementioned ability to microwave people with a prolonged stare.
(Actually, it’s not just people that Charlie will turn to charcoal. Small indiscriminate objects, entire housing estates and, in one icky scene, an over-playful neighbourhood cat can all cop a grilling if she is in the right kind of wrong mood.)
Charlie’s powers are the result of a government experiment from long ago, a drug trial which turned her parents Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) into reluctant telepaths.
Andy can control (or as he prefers to put it, “push”) the thoughts of others through pure willpower. Vicky can do other stuff that causes involuntary events to occur, but she prefers not to.
The family is on the run from a shadowy federal outfit known as The Shop, who are doubling down on their efforts to find the runaways now that they have been advised that Charlie’s powers may one day cause a nuclear explosion.
While its horror scenes of a child causing hell to open up on earth are far more frightening than those in the original movie, the new Firestarter is actually more of a chase-based thriller.
When assessed on those grounds, the movie is occasionally involving, but can get quite dull for prolonged periods of time.
Firestarter is now showing in general release.
HOW TO PLEASE A WOMAN (M) Rating: General release
This deceptively appealing
Australian-made affair initially comes across as merely a daring, if dumb, sex comedy. Sally Phillips stars as Gina, a middle-aged woman continually taken for granted by her husband, and recently shown the door by her employer. Out of both carnal frustration and career desperation, Gina starts an all-male cleaning business for an all-female clientele. For a reasonable fee, Gina’s boys will strut over to a lady’s residence and give it the tidying it deserves. For a discreetly agreed extra fee, a typical Gina cleaner will also step up, disrobe and then deliver a lonely lady the loving she deserves. Gina’s new calling as a suburban super-pimp sends revenue through the roof and a liberating shockwave through her neighbourhood. And of course, her uncaring spouse (Cameron Daddo) doesn’t even notice. There is a smarter, more insightful movie happening here than its semisitcom premise initially indicates. Phillips finds subtle notes of melancholy and self-discovery in the character of Gina that are as touching as they are funny. There is also an air of casual, but genuine camaraderie among the predominantly female cast that cannot fail to keep viewers invested, engaged and often (but not always) amused. Co-stars Erik Thomson, Tasma Walton.
THE CONTRACTOR (MA15+) Rating: Now streaming on Amazon Prime
It ain’t a Jason Bourne movie, but it’ll do for now. That is the best way to come at this solid espionage thriller, which moves confidently and convincingly through the same shadowy recesses of covert spy-guy activity. Chris Pine stars as James Harper, a US Army lifer who is suddenly and unexpectedly bundled out of the military without a pat on the back or a payout. Seeking help from his best mate (Ben Foster, who paired up with Pine in the brilliant Hell or High Water back in the day), Harper is steered towards a private protection outfit for a temp job. This mysterious mob (one of the higher-ups is Kiefer Sutherland, back in Jack “24” Bauer mode) have a gig going in Berlin, where a select squad must infiltrate a dodgy lab linked to terrorists. The job should entail simply breaking some stuff and then bringing some stuff back to HQ, and Harper understandably overlooks some key minor details while he dreams on the major payout coming his way. Then all of a sudden, Harper finds himself cut loose by an employer all over again. Only this time, their redundancy package has a whiff of certain death about it.
Nothing too remarkable here, but Pine anchors proceedings in fine style, and the running time is shorter and sharper than these kind of movies often are. Well worth the look if edgy escapism is required.