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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nThe film is based on a Stephen King novel about a girl with telekinetic powers that can cause deadly destruction when emotionally triggered. Not \u201cCarrie,\u201d a different one, though I can\u2019t help but think that giving the main character a name that\u2019s about two letters off isn\u2019t going to make it seem less derivative. 11-year-old Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) can start fires with her mind whenever she wants, and sometimes when she doesn\u2019t want. It\u2019s basically the opposite problem as the main character from a certain kids\u2019 movie, and yes, I did sarcastically sing \u201cLet It Go\u201d a few times while watching this garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The adults in Charlie\u2019s life don\u2019t know what to do with her. Her father Andy (Zac Efron), who himself has some limited powers of mind control, wants her to suppress her power. Her mother Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) wants her to learn to use it responsibly. Shady corporate type Hollister (Gloria Reuben) wants to weaponize her. Dr. Wanless (Kurtwood Smith) wants to kill her because she\u2019s just too dangerous. All things considered, I think I agreed with Wanless the most. Are you happy movie? You convinced me that it\u2019s best if the little girl dies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hollister sends assassin Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) to abduct Charlie, with the parents\u2019 lives as a \u201csecondary concern.\u201d Soon Charlie and Andy are on the run, with Andy quickly realizing that suppression isn\u2019t going to be an option anymore. They hitch a ride with reluctant farmer Irv (John Beasley) in a sequence that is supposed to be heartwarming, but really just makes me wonder why Andy used his mind control powers to get Irv to give them a ride instead of getting him to give them his truck. The whole thing ends in a top-secret facility where Charlie gleams completely the wrong lesson from an earlier story from a story Andy told her earlier about taking lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the many, many things wrong with this movie is that the fires Charlie starts just aren\u2019t scary. Explosions are one thing, but fires poofing into existence don\u2019t have the same impact. It\u2019s why I was so disappointed with that 2018 \u201cHalloween\u201d update when Jamie Lee Curtis chose to burn her house down instead of blowing it up. The fires in this movie do leave burns that are grotesque, but the makeup is so unconvincing that I doubt they\u2019ll register as traumatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s hard to think of anything positive to say about \u201cFirestarter,\u201d from the acting to the script to the action to the movie\u2019s need to exist. Ooh, I liked the score, with contributions from original \u201cHalloween\u201d director\/composer John Carpenter. But this movie is terrible on pretty much every other level. If you really want to see it, it\u2019s playing in theaters and streaming on Peacock. But it certainly isn\u2019t worth your money, and even if you consider streaming \u201cfree,\u201d it\u2019s still not worth your time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: D<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFirestarter\u201d is rated R for violent content. Its running time is 94 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver It\u2019s the week after a big blockbuster in \u201cDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,\u201d and you know that means: I\u2019m going to review a movie… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":53267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[1277],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53268,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53266\/revisions\/53268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}