"Firestarter" a tight but thin Stephen King adaptation

Firestarter (2022)

Stephen King adaptations have been enjoying their revival from the ‘80s, now with another version of his 1980 novel about the little pyro. That would be “Firestarter,” and a new interpretation wasn’t off the table, just like how a remake of anything isn’t inherently a bad idea. It helped that there was room for improvement after director Mark K. Lester’s watchable but clunky 1984 adaptation, which saw 10-year-old Drew Barrymore clenching her fists and having her hair blown by a giant fan to charmingly hokey effect. Putting nostalgia aside, it’s one of King’s lesser works, a pre-superhero craze sci-fi horror story that can’t really compete with the one about the telekinetic prom queen. While it does peak early with a lot of promise, 2022’s slickly functional “Firestarter” doesn’t catch fire, either.

Ryan Kiera Armstrong (TV’s “American Horror Story: Double Feature”) takes over the title role from Drew Barrymore as Charlie McGee, the 11-year-old daughter of two government experiment guinea pigs. Having been able to ignite fires with her mind from infancy (pyrokinesis), Charlie is now encouraged to control “the bad thing” by her Luddite parents, the telepathic Andy (Zac Efron) and the telekinetic Vicky (Sydney Lemmon). Of course, when a school bully makes her snap, she has trouble controlling it. Just as the family gets ready to go on the run again, a government agency called the Department of Scientific Intelligence (DSI)—or, “The Shop”—that wants to study and understand Charlie sends out a strong and silent assassin, John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes), who has his own plans for the lil’ firestarter capable of a nuclear explosion. 

While it’s an easy burn to wonder why anyone bothered remaking “Firestarter,” this may work better for those with no attachment to the source material or the not-exactly-untouchable 1984 film. The screenplay by Scott Teems (2021’s “Halloween Kills”) isn’t overly precious and makes some changes for the sake of efficiency. But there’s tight storytelling and then there’s thin storytelling, and as the film starts to favor the latter, the high concept ends up overshadowing the characters and story to land enough of an impact. Luckily, Ryan Kiera Armstrong is up to the challenge as Charlie, and Zac Efron is pretty solid, too (just call him “Zaddy Efron” now), forming a credible father-daughter relationship. Of several creative choices, it is an admittedly clever one to make Andy an ex-smoker (or in the midst of quitting) and a life coach using his telepathy for good; this time, he bleeds from his eyes, not his nose, when using his powers.

Deviating from the original film’s story structure (which switched back and forth between the current action and flashbacks), this re-adaptation gets the government-experiment exposition out of the way during the opening credit sequence. Then, in lieu of Andy and Charlie already being on the run, we find the Magee family in a comfortable place before Charlie begins struggling with keeping her fire powers in check. It’s a more streamlined way to tell this story. Other beats are composited, like Andy using his powers on a friendly farmer named Irv (John Beasley) to let them hitch a ride, as well as the confrontation that follows on Irv’s farm where Andy and Charlie also first come across Rainbird. The most divisive change comes from a different ending, which might have worked had the baffling turnaround by a key character not felt like it just came out of nowhere. 

Even on its own terms, a lot of this feels so whittled down to bare essentials to the point of not feeling like a complete story. Or, is this just the set-up for a second "Firestarter 2: Rekindled," the 2002 SyFy Channel miniseries? It is a chase film after all, but the first act to the third feels awfully rushed with an anticlimactic finale of so many faceless DSI headquarter employees getting roasted as Charlie sneers with a one-liner ("Liar, liar, pants on fire"). Director Keith Thomas (who broke out big with his first feature, 2021’s hair-raisingly creepy “The Vigil”) doesn’t seem to have intended any of this to be truly frightening, but there is exactly one jolt and a few gnarly scorcher moments. While there’s nothing like setting real stunt people on fire, the fire effects here are bigger and still not as cheesy as one might expect in a CGI-laden world. One horrific moment involving an innocent stray cat would ordinarily get points for being unapologetically bold, but it just feels gratuitously mean and off-putting. We should be feeling for Charlie and her plight, not wanting her to be put down like the animal she cruelly barbecues.

George C. Scott made for an unpredictably ruthless and creepy John Rainbird in the 1984 version as a one-eyed Vietnam vet who could turn on the compassion to get Charlie on his side. While Michael Greyeyes (who was so great and nuanced in “Wild Indian”) is more appropriate indigenous casting, he barely registers when the role doesn’t allow for much complexity beyond being a one-note sniper. Aside from John Beasley bringing the right amount of compassion and skepticism as farmer Irv, other actors feel as inert and underserved as Greyeyes. Not counting the camcorder-shot credit sequence, Kurtwood Smith gets one scene and then disappears as Dr. Wanless, the creator of the superhuman chemical drug. Gloria Rueben makes some interesting choices with the way she delivers a line or carries herself as the icy Captain Hollister (once played by Martin Sheen), but the gender-reversed role doesn’t really give Rueben all that much to do. Also, there are only so many ways for Hollister to explain how special Charlie is until it just becomes redundant.

A cool, retro synth score by Cody Carpenter, John Carpenter, and Daniel A. Davies (who also composed for Blumhouse’s “Halloween” and “Halloween Kills”) might be the moodiest, most thrilling, and ominous part of all. The rest of “Firestarter” hardly deserves a place on the bottom-rung of Stephen King adaptations—just back off if you’re calling it the worst—but it is aggressively not-bad, going through the motions without really justifying its existence. Coincidentally, there is a superior film, “The Innocents,” being released the same week about children mishandling their superpowers, and the King himself rightfully showered it with praise. Methinks he won’t be doing the same for this lackluster Blumhouse product. 

Grade: C +

Universal Pictures is releasing “Firestarter” (94 min.) in theaters and on Peacock on May 13, 2022.