What is the fascination with junior spies? I guess a lot of it stems from juvenile fantasies of being James Bond and having those fantasies become a reality. Charlie Higson realised his fantasies in his Silverfin and Blood Fever books. The Americans, who have a reputation for sticking their noses into other people’s business, have produced their fair share of teen spies, from the animated TOTALLY SPIES and KIM POSSIBLE to AGENT CODY BANKS and Robert Rodriguez’s pure fantasy SPY KIDS trilogy. Now the Brits, who practically invented the spy genre, have come up with their own hero, Alex Rider. While the idea of kids being recruited by government agencies to spy on adults does feel like another Orwellian nightmare coming to life, there is nothing quite that sinister in any of these movies.
Like a lot of British kids’ films (and this is definitely a kid’s film), this has its origins in children’s fiction, one of the few things the British still do better than any other nation. Anthony Horowitz, the creator of the Alex Rider books, is a prolific writer for young readers and, apart from the Rider stories has written some great horror stories and a series of books about the Diamond Brothers, with great titles like, The Falcon’s Malteser, Public Enemy Number Two and The French Confection. However it is his Rider stories that have really captured the imagination of the kids, so it seemed natural that they would be made into films. To his credit, Horowitz, who is also a scriptwriter of some note, penning episodes of Poirot, Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War, has written this screen adaptation, thus ensuring its authenticity.
Not having read the books, although there are copies of them lying around our house (mostly because teenagers are incapable of putting things away), I can’t vouch for their faithfulness to the original and apart from a change of name and nationality of the villain, Horowitz seems to not have upset his young fans. But how does it stand up as film for those unfamiliar with the books?
The story is about Alex Rider who is recruited by MI6 for special missions, after his uncle, also an “employee” has an “accident”. In this case he has to discover the sinister plans of philanthropic computer mogul, Darius Sayle, and why he wants to give away free “Stormbreaker” computers to all the schools in the country.
It starts very cleverly with the voiceover of someone, who is obviously a teacher, asking everyone to “sit down, be quiet and switch off their mobile phones”, which seems quite appropriate given the target cinema audience. Then we are introduced to Alex Rider/Pettyfer and first impressions were not favourable. Not only does he not look, or sound, fourteen, but also his delivery was less than convincing, unfortunately handsome action hero-types aren’t always reknown for their acting skills, but once the action starts then his casting makes more sense, and the real acting is left to the well-established adult cast. Mickey Rourke does a great job as the villain Darius Sayle, a role that not only suits his rugged looks, but one he seems to relish playing. Bill Nighy, as leader of MI6, not only steals every scene he is in, but is without doubt the most memorable character in the whole movie. Not only is he almost unrecognisable, an essential trait for a character actor, but also his cross between a schoolmaster and nutty sergeant-major, brings a smile every time he is on screen. Andy Serkis’s Mr Grin, while looking menacing, was a bit of a waste of the actor’s talent and Sayle’s other assistant, Nadia Vole, played by Missi Pyle, was more of a pantomime villain than anything that could be taken as a serious threat.
The story moves along at a fair pace, but does seem to skip bits of a logical time sequence in order to fit as much as possible into its 93 minutes, leaving very little time to develop characters amongst all the action sequences, which range from intense martial arts to the comical. Luckily this movie is aimed at a young audience that will not be quite as hyper-critical (or is that cynical?) as I am and they won’t be questioning the occasional thinness of the plot or the implausibility of the action (as I do when watching 24), not that most ‘adult’ spy/action movies prefer complex stories or character development over the stunt sequences. CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND it is not. I was also rather disappointed with the convenient ending, and without giving away any spoilers, the other villain’s actions seemed completely incongruous and out of character with what had come beforehand.
In spite of a few weak spots, STORMBREAKER is fun film (but not as much as SPY KIDS) with enough action to entertain the boys and plenty of Alex for the girls. However, I doubt whether the boys will go out imitating Alex Rider, as an older generation ran around playing at being James Bond after seeing a movie, which was always part of the entertainment. Although with parental paranoia and the authorities’ crack down on toy guns, I rather suspect they will buy the videogame instead.
If you have teens and pre-teens that need entertaining over the holidays then it is worth taking them to see it, after all we should support the local film industry.
To celebrate the release of the film we have an exclusive hardshell backpack, as used by Alex Rider in the film (shown right) to give away. To win this prize go to the competition section of the forum.