| Product: |
Stormbreaker (DVD) |
| Date: |
03.10.06 (373 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Fun, action packed, some good acting
Disadvantages: Star and major villains acting
Stormbreaker is the first in what is a probably planned series of films based around the smash hit teen novels of Anthony Horowitz (creator of the much maligned BBC Saturday night series Crime Traveller amongst others). The books are the spy genres equivalent of the Harry Potter books with a young Alex Rider finding out that all his life he was being trained to become a spy by his uncle. Alex Rider is a James Bond junior so to speak.
Stormbreaker has a first paragraph style start, or to put it in film terms a James Bond pre credit sequence start, it is clever enough to grab you and inform you at the same time. We are introduced to you Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer) at school being asked about his uncle’s job. He explains that his uncle has a boring job and is at a conference in Cornwall right at this moment. As he explains more the camera switches over to his uncle (Ewan McGregor) at his ‘conference’. He is a spy himself and is trying to escape from his latest undercover assignment location, something he fails at as Alex tells us how much he loves his uncle.
The death of his uncle leads to Alex discovering not only the truth about his uncle but also about the training he had been receiving from him. Martial arts, mountain climbing, horse riding etc, things he thought were just his uncle spending time with him.
His uncle’s boss with the aim of not only recruiting him for MI6 but also sending him undercover to complete his uncle’s final mission, to investigate the activities of Darius Sayles and his Stormbreaker computers, also approaches him. MI6 are convinced that Sayles is up to something with his computers and what to find out what before they are released into the countries schools.
Eager to find out what happened to his uncle and who killed him Alex agrees and soon finds himself a schoolboy spy.
There is a lot to like about Stormbreaker, the opening sequence, some good action scenes, a pretty good plot and some great lines… Bill Nighy as the boss of MI6 has one of the best “We don’t trust him” he says, “why not?”, “Um… well we don’t trust anyone, its what we do!” he replies.
Bill Nighy once again proves what a great character actor he is, he is very expressive and his actions and body language say far more about his character than any words could do.
Stephen Fry puts in a characteristically quirky performance as Alex’s equivalent of James Bond’s Q, a gadget builder works in a famous toy store. Almost worth seeing just for the scene with him in, as clichéd as it may be.
Someone else who stands out acting wise is Missi Pyle, she plays Nadia Vole, an enjoyably over the top comic villainess, the henchwoman of Mickey Rourke’s Sayles.
There is a very amusing sequence where Alex is sent on a special forces training course. Mixing in the macho soldiers attitude with the exuberance of youth makes for a fun little section.
But then of course you have the bad points… Alex Rider is just so uninteresting a character that you just never really get any sort of liking of him as a person. While this doesn’t matter during the set piece action scenes it does in the character development ones, this isn’t helped by the fact that Pettyfer, who while looking good, is just not good enough and does detract from the film in places. Alicia Silverstone, as Alex’s housekeeper, Jack, (he lives with his uncle) is not only wasted, apart from one hilarious fight scene with Missi Plye, but also seems to have lost her ability to act, surprisingly as I love her in Clueless.
The stunt double for Alex is obvious pretty much every time he appears, which gets rather annoying after a while but not as annoying as Mickey Rourke does as Sayles. There is a way of being over the top that is good and a way that just comes across as crap. Pyle is good, Rourke is crap… and he just looks so weird as well! He looks out of place, acts out of place and doesn’t make a very worthwhile villain at all. So much so that Damien Lewis (Keane, Band of Brothers) as Gregorovich, the man who killed Alex’s uncle, just blows him away in every seen he is in. Now there is a man who is threatening and scary without even trying. Just the way he speaks and moves just oozes villainery. I have to say I would love to see him play a proper Bond villain.
When it comes down to it Stormbreaker is a second rate James Bond rip off, that will be loved by the kids, the same way Bond is by adults, but it is straddling that line between being a worthwhile watch or not for adults, but then of course it isn’t meant to be watched by them anyway. It doesn’t hold enough to be a great film for adults but does have enough good bits in it that it would not be boring either. I did enjoy it but maybe not quite enough to be whole heartedly recommend it to others.
Summary: Not a bad film, especially for kids, but not great.
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