Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is a young girl with the incredible – and as of yet, uncontrollable – power of being able to set things on fire with her mind.  The daughter of Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon), both with powers of their own, captures the interest of the Department of Scientific Intelligence.  Led by Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben), she enlists the expertise of Dr. Joseph Wanless (Kurtwood Smith) and the muscle of Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) to bring Charlie in for evaluation of the later effects of Dr. Wanless’ Lot #6 serum which gave Andy and Vicky their powers years ago in a failed experimental trial. 

Firestarter originated in a novel by Stephen King in 1980 and was quickly brought to the screen by Mark L. Lester in 1984.  Thirty-eight years later, Blumhouse Productions has remade the property with Keith Thomas directing from a script by Scott Teems for release by Universal.  At only 94 minutes, the film is quite economical in its pacing, not spending much time to linger and while the overarching story in enjoyable enough thanks to King’s source text, the dialogue is so rigid throughout that it adds a level of B-Movie camp that is unsupported by the overall production design, so it feels disjointed and unconnected with what we are seeing on screen.  Further, the script is riddled with quips and puns that fall flat, again, because the script has done little in the way of proving itself to us, these failed attempts at witty banter stick out as glaring flaws in the writing trying to cash in on a cheap reference or topical remark. 

It becomes difficult to fairly judge the performances because of the dialogue issues, but there are some direction issues at play here, too.  For one instance, there is already the visual cue of when Andy is using his powers as his eyes turn bloodshot and he will eventually bleed if he uses his powers for any prolonged amount of time.  Yet the performance insists on a neck crack each time Andy taps into his powers.  Further, Greyeyes and Reuben are given almost no direction and left to their own devices to be vaguely menacing with each line reading.  The lack of nuance here is strange as King’s novels tend to, if anything, be overstuffed which gives the adapters plenty to weed through when they translate the novel into a screenplay.  In Firestarter, it seems like the core concept was lifted, but none of the characterization other than if someone is either on Charlie’s side or against her. 

Without knowledge of the source text, it is hard to say how faithful of an adaptation Firestarter is to King’s work.  It seems unlikely, however, that King would leave the powers so loosely defined especially when considering the novel runs over 400 pages long, yet the story presented on screen seems more likely that it would have been an entry into a larger anthology.  But turning back to Charlie, and also Andy, it is not unique problem to just Firestarter, as many films that showcase characters with superpowers tend to keep the limits of their strength and capabilities undefined so that they can achieve anything that the narrative requires.  It is certainly true here as we have a basic understanding of what they are capable of, but as the story progresses, their powers continue to grow and expand beyond that initial understanding to help keep tension and action high at all times.  This is not simply a subversion of our expectations of the powers, but rather a cheap trick played by many a screenwriter on their audiences who have bought into the world they created only to have the rules thrown to the winds out of necessity and convenience on the page instead of ingenuity.   

With as storied of a career as King has, and many of his titles having been adapted, and now we are in an era where those adaptations are being remade, rebooted, and reimagined, it is understandable that not every film will be in the upper echelons of his work.  Firestarter will not likely be a title seen crowning many “best of” lists.  What does shine through is a John Carpenter score that, while its tinkering nature does feel like a retread of his work on the Halloween films, adds the right levels of uncertainty and discomfort to the scenes.  Again, though, it is calling back to those 70’s and 80’s slasher films and while it is admirable that Firestarter was updated to modern day in some of its dialogue and set decoration, it still relies too heavily on genre tropes to deliver its suspense and its thrills leaving the end result rather empty and unfulfilling for the audiences whose only goosebumps will come from the cinema’s AC being set a little too low.