Liar … Liar … Pants … On … Fire!
Main Cast: Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong
Director: Keith Thomas
Oh My God!!!
Some movies are so bad, they leave you disappointed or confused. Some movies are so bad they leave you entertained and amused. And some movies just make you want to write a list of everyone involved in the making of said movie and go back in time and prevent their births.
Growing up, I had one favorite movie to the point I would set an alarm for midnight and wake up to watch it if it was on HBO. That movie was FIRESTARTER (1984). In retrospect, no it wasn’t a good movie, but to 13-year-old me, I loved it. I loved the plot, I loved the story of a father and his daughter, I loved the hopelessness of the situation and how the dad regains his strength and his power and is able to save her. I loved the actors. For years, I’d watch anything David Keith or George C. Scott or Art Carney or Martin Sheen were in because they were in FIRESTARTER. Okay, okay, I admit, the most important reason, the reason I would wake up in the middle of the night to catch it in the days before DVRs, was because of my crush on Drew Barrymore. Sue me. And why I didn’t just record the movie so I could watch it to my heart’s content, I don’t know.
But fast forward almost 40 years and FIRESTARTER 2022 comes along. At first I thought why mess with it? The first movie was as close to the novel as I’ve seen any King adaptation come, so what could a remake possibly add?
The answer … well, a remake could come along, take a passing glance at the book, maybe skim the back cover copy, and then proceed with just whatever the hell it gleaned from that cursory inspection. That has to be the answer for what happened here because aside from a few key details, FIRESTARTER 2022 is NOT FIRESTARTER.
Charlie McGee (score one for getting the names right) and her parents Andy and Vicky are living off the grid, no phones, no internet because years ago Andy and Vicky took part in an experiment that left them with low-grade mental powers, but gave their daughter, when she was born, the power to start fires with her mind.
When the Shop, led by Captain Hollister, finally finds the McGee’s, Vicky is killed by Rainbird—another Shop victim with powers of his own—and Andy is captured while Charlie escapes. The girl hides out in the woods where she practices and masters her abilities, then she mounts a rescue attempt, storming the castle to save her father.
Okay, where did I lose you? Was it the part where Rainbird has powers, too? Or the part where Charlie is NEVER a prisoner of The Shop? Should we go back even further to where Vicky is with them well into the movie even though in the novel, she was already dead when it opened, and we only see her in flashbacks? Yeah, that sounds about right, that was about where the movie lost me, too.
The screenplay here is by Scott Teems, who also wrote HALLOWEEN KILLS and THE EXORCIST: BELIEVER for what that’s worth, with direction by Keith Thomas who hadn’t done much directing before this, but who would go on the write the screenplay for THE FIRST OMEN. Not for nothing, stick to writing. And the next time Scott Teems says hey I have this script if you want to look at it, tell him no, I do not want to; I wrote my own.
Another sticking point for me with this movie was the cast. Zac Efron was 35 when this movie came out, so he technically could have been the father to young Charlie. Except he still looked 25, so I didn’t believe him for a second as Andy. Sydney Lemmon gives a decent enough performance as Vicky, I guess, but her character is really a nonentity in the whole thing.
Gloria Ruebun gave her best as Captain Hollister, but the part is so terribly written, she doesn’t have much to work with. Same with Michael Greyeyes as Rainbird. In the original movie, Martin Sheen and George C. Scott had a TON of material to work with, but this time around they’re almost included as afterthoughts, both. The movie needed a villain, so let’s toss Cap in there. Oh, we need a catalyst for the third act, better write in some Rainbird stuff.
But none of them, and I mean not one single actor in this entire movie, angered me as much as Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie McGee. And I admit, some of that might be holdover from her character on American Horror Story and how much I couldn’t stand her. It might be the fact she’s not Drew Barrymore. But it’s mostly just HER and her performance. There are some actors you just don’t like their face. For me, it’s Jason Clarke. I’m sure he’s a great guy, but to me he always looks wasted drunk. Something about his eyes. I think I can safely add Ryan Armstrong to that list. I didn’t like her in AHS. I didn’t like her in Skeleton Crew, and as my daughter and I are finally almost done with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as soon as I saw she was cast as the slayer in the new revamp, I said well, I guess we’re not watching that!
However, I’m not saying she ruined the entire movie and if they’d cast someone else as Charlie I would have hated FIRESTARTER 2022 less. Not at all. This thing was garbage from the start. The writer had only a passing knowledge of the actual material, I’m not sure what movie the director thought he was making, and the actors were clearly trying to knock this one out to get to their next, more important, gig.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with that original plot, so I don’t know why they had to take such a huge detour, but this is not FIRESTARTER. Maybe half a star for effort? But overall, unless there’s a Rifftrax of this in the future, and my God I hope there is, I wouldn’t waste even streaming it for free on Tubi or something. Do not recommend FIRESTARTER 2022.
C. Dennis Moore is the author of over 60 published short stories and novellas in the speculative fiction genre. Most recent appearances are in the Dark Highlands 2, What Fears Become, Dead Bait 3 and Dark Highways anthologies. His novels are Revelations, and the Angel Hill stories, The Man in the Window, The Third Floor, and The Flip.
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