Many adaptations of Stephen King novels exist--on film or television--that aren't very good. It is quite frankly just really, really difficult to translate masterful textual stories onto the big screen. But even amidst that mediocrity, Firestarter might be the worst effort I've ever beheld.
For a very basic overview, Firestarter tells the story of young Charlie McGee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), a girl imbued with pyro-kinetic mental abilities--in other words, the ability to create/control fire. Hidden away from society by a father (Zac Efron) & mother (Sydney Lemmon) who perpetuated her condition as part of a collegiate experiment, they are eventually found out and pursued by a shadowy government agency and mercenary Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) in particular.
Skipping right to the point, 2022's Firestarter intentionally undercuts everything that makes the novel retain any sort of iconic status. Some examples:
-The Lot Six experiment flashbacks (with college-age Mr. & Mrs. McGee) are some of the most compelling material in the book. Here? Relegated to opening-credit background filler.
-The tension between whether or not Charlie should train herself to control her special abilities? Used in a couple of 30-second snippets and then discarded entirely.
-One of the book's hallmarks was the separation (over a long period of time) of Charlie and her beloved father, which sets up a perfect slow-burn to the explosive climax. That isn't even attempted here--instead, all that material is laughable condensed into the film's final 15-20 minutes.
I am very rarely tempted to stoop to 1-star level on any entertainment property, but this movie came dangerously close. The only reason I even bumped it up to 2-stars? Because Efron was perfectly cast and would have been perfect for his role, had not the entire thing around him been a flame-out (pardon the pun).
In short, Firestarter is simply a hollowed-out vehicle for utilizing the King name (and, oddly enough, a John Carpenter-and-son score) to get a few eyeballs. I hate being that crass, but this film deserves it. Not one ounce of care was put into the crafting of interesting characters or plot pacing.
