Previously adapted in 1984 from Steven King’s novel of the same title Firestarter is another go at bring the story to the screen and like the 1984 adaptation this one also ultimately fails.

In 1984 the lead role of Charlie, a young girl with pyrokinetic powers, was performed by 8-year-old Drew Barrymore, and, while she has become an accomplished actor and producers, at 7 she was not ready to carry a film, few that young are, and that, along with middling production values and lackluster cinematography produced a lifeless dull film.

The 2022 interpretation is led by 11-year-old Ryan Kiera Armstrong and the three additional

Credit: Blumhouse Picture

years are a multiplier for her to shoulder the burden of lead character in a major motion picture, yielding a more credible performance and with greater emotional depth.  2022’s Firestarter also sports more talented filmmaking, less exaggerated physical acting, and a subtle light touch to the photography that raises the film’s quality considerably.

Sadly, the script in the final act crashes and burns, jettisoning the story line of emotional manipulation and abuse for a fire spectacle for a finale with a final resolution that breaks all disbelief and insults the character’s trauma and breaks entirely with the source material.

At a quick hour and a half the filmmakers still managed to wedge in pointless scenes that had they been edited out no one would have noticed. What should have been a slow burn, pun intended, of tension drags in flat chemistry-less scenes. The story’s antagonists, are both all-knowing in their surveillance, spotting a random heat spike on a FLIR camera when supposed they had no concept of Charlie’s locations, and monumental ignorant of how to proceed.

The film is not worth your time, and I would suggest if you have a burning, again intentional, curiosity to see it, wait for cable or streaming.