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Home Reviews Film Review

Stormbreaker (2006)

Olly Buxton by Olly Buxton
May 5, 2010
in Film Review
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Just when you thought the Bond genre had finally choked on its own self-awareness – assisted knowingly by Austin Powers, Johnny English and so forth – enter Geoffrey Sax and his film adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’ Alex Rider character. I’m not sure Stormbreaker does enough by itself to save the day, but it lays a solid foundation for the inevitable sequels to build on, so we may not have heard the last of Alex Rider just yet.

Rider is a mature-looking (shades of “I say, George! You’re remarkably well developed for a fourteen year-old!) but in truth somewhat dull and simpering teenager and so has no interest in Honey Rider, Allotta Fagyna and their ilk (Alicia Silverstone who, ten years ago, might have aspired to play this role, makes do as a big-sisterish au pair), but does quite quickly transform from sulky schoolboy ingenue (avec “issues”) to lean mean butt-kicking machine (still avec “issues”), no sooner has evergreen comedy buzzard, Bill Nighy, arrived on the scene to flap eyebrows and tell him how. Perhaps in homage to Roger Moore, eyebrow flapping passes for comic (and/or dramatic) expression for a number of the lead characters in this film.

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It’s all pretty routine stuff, pretty well executed on the whole, with nice (but not overdone) use of CGI from time to time. By and large it zings along and importantly never takes itself too seriously: most of the support characters get plenty of comic opportunities (Nighy and Mickey Rourke milking theirs for all they’re worth), but Alex Pettyfer as Rider himself gets none – there’s none of the cheeky wisecracking hero here, which a lost opportunity to establish a natural successor to Bond.

A couple of irritants: no doubt for the American market, the word “heck” is used liberally in place other expletives, which just sounded silly, but more to the point hypocritical given that the characters in question were happy to punch, kick, knife and machine-gun each other without a second thought, but all pruriently refrained from using the word “hell”.

Lastly, there are a couple of unnecessary extra characters, and the final exchange between arch (but not particularly well established) villain Yassen Gregorovich and hero Rider defies all credible explanation, save as a means of wrapping up the film and laying the groundwork for the first sequel.

Interesting first instalment.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Olly Buxton

Olly Buxton

Olly lives amongst the lush olive groves and cypress trees on the slopes of Mount Muswell, just north of London, where he has a thirty five acre lifestyle orchard and farm with lifetime partner Bridget and their small ('but growing!') herd of alpacas. When he's not darting around the corniches of Hamstead and Highgate on his convertible BSA motorcycle ('it's more of a cabriolet, really') or tasting his latest batch of extra virgin oil with the orchard's head oliculturalist, Ned, Olly researches for his forthcoming novel, a science fiction fantasy in which, courtesy of a time machine, it is David Bowie and not namesake Jim who is left to defend the Alamo from the siege of the Mexican Army. A committed Radical Marxist Ironist, Olly made his fortune during the world-wide anti-capitalist riots of 1999 on the back of the simple but ingenious idea: selling packed lunches and bottles of diet coke to hungry protesters at a huge mark-up. "FeedtheCommie.com", as he styled his fledgling business, quickly became an enormously profitable multinational operation, quenching thirsts and filling bellies of protesters, dissidents, exiles and other militant intellectuals during times of civil unrest and civil protest in thirty six countries around the globe, from its headquarters in Seattle. The company also secured lucrative sponsorship deals with (among others) Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the Socialist Workers' Party. Olly then consolidated his net worth by securitising the income streams from FeedtheCommie.Com, negotiating a successful IPO and selling his entire holding ('mostly to student Marxist Radicals I had befriended, I would point out') at the top of the market. As of its public debut, FeedtheCommie.com is yet to make any revenue and is currently trading at 6 per cent of its par value. Nevertheless, Olly doesn't feel too bad about the sub-class of bankrupt Marxists he has created. "It's what they would have wanted". Now the second richest man in the world, Olly has settled into a life of writing political philosophy, voyaging on journeys of self discovery ('I find something new about myself every day. This morning it was dandruff'), and ceramic painting (pointillism).

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