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Rider on the storm
Stormbreaker
Directed by Geoffrey Sax
Certificate PG
AN impressive cast head up this straight forward spy adventure.
It has all the ingredients for a successful summer blockbuster – a good looking lead in Alex Pettyfer, a super baddie in Mickey Rourke (pictured), and an absurd and dastardly plot for teen-spy Alex Rider to solve. Throw in Bill Nighy, Ewan McGregor, Alicia Silverstone, Stephen Fry and a horribly underused Andy Serkis and you have a line up of people who know what is expected of them.
Rider is a young man who has unwittingly been trained in the sorts of skills you need when taking on mega-unpleasant baddies.
Alex was orphaned when his parents were killed in a plane crash: when his uncle (Ewan McGregor) dies in tragic and mysterious circumstances, Alex wants to find out how and why.
He discovers his uncle lead a secret double life as an international spy. Before he has time to grieve over Ian’s painful death he is recruited by spy boss Alan Blunt (Bill Nighy): it just so happens that with his uncle’s encouragement young Alex is pretty good at all the sorts of high kicking kung fu skills you would expect from a secret agent. He is sent of a mission to investigate Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke) after the industrialist offers to donate a computer system to schools – a plot twist plausible to the generation it is aimed at.
There are some good moments. There are many impressive stunts and there are some nail biting and original chase scenes.
And by persuading the likes of Mickey Rourke to be as devious a baddie as James Bond ever had to face, Stormbreaker has a lot actors that are fun to watch on screen. But there is the constant feeling that Alex himself, and those around him, are not really interesting enough for the audience to care about their eventual fate. |
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