carpenter score is good, zac efron's always a good actor so i liked him, but in general just. so boring.
a cat dies and it's pretty graphic, someone else here gave a time stamp and that sounds about right. idk charlie just felt a little too old for her behavior to be rationalized away, even if she never learned how to deal with her powers.
Possibly mild spoilers!
I have to say that I'm extremely puzzled regarding the review scores for this film. What were they watching? Can't have been this, that's for sure. (Because I know best)
I know a lot of people probably won't agree but I loved almost every minute of it with a few exceptions; those relating to cat heaven, pronouns and the ever infamous "Liar, liar pant's on fire" line featured in the trailer.
I never liked the 1984 adaptation all that much. To me, it always felt too long and sleep inducing. Thankfully, this version remedies that by removing all the pacehalting obstacles that make the 84' version feel like it's 3 hours long. A pretty brave decision on the filmmakers' part . Another brave decision concerns the ending, which is sure to be devisive. I for one, loved the ending.
Brave.
As an adaptation, I feel it safe to say that the 84' version sticks much closer to the source material, for better or worse.
This is not the book, and that's OK.
Efron and Armstrong, which share great chemistry together, are both really good and they sold every scene they're in. Michael Greyeyes' Rainbird steal the show for me though. I love the look of him and what they did with the character's arc.
Visually, it's a great looking film. The combination of John and Cody Carpenter's bass heavy score and the raw, forceful VFX that feel like an explosion of fire etched into your retinas leave you with an immense feeling of satisfaction that lasts all the way through the end titles.
Pros: The actors, the score, the pacing, the streamlined plot,the brave new ending and shirtless Efron.
Cons: Cringeworthy dialogue (from the writers of Halloween Kills) in two scenes.
8/10 - Great
the score from John Carpenter is the only redeeming quality
graphic animal abuse/death - TIMESTAMP 38:52-40:21
The original was much better
More of a superhero film rather than horror. Watched the original just before watching this and none of the two impressed me but the original is better. The John Carpenter score is too good for this. Weird to see Zac Efron as a dad but he did great. Michael Greyeyes is such a badass!
Pleasantly surprised. If this were Marvel the reviews would be way kinder.
Just another one for the gallery of remakes that shouldn't have been done.
In the 70's /80's there was 50's/60's movie remakes, which they took a good movie and made it great (The Thing, The Blob, The Fly, Body Snatchers, etc). After the 90's they started to peak a great movie e make this... a shadow of what the original was.
Simpler screenplay, shortly time, same look and montage style (Friday the 13th, The omen, The Fog, The Invasion, Carrie, Children of Corn, Fright Night, Poltergeist, etc), something like the made-for-tv-movie was in the 80's. A shame.
Stay with the '84 classic. It´s great!
It was like I was watching an X-Men movie
This movie was terrible and kept making me hope for Charlie McGee's demise. This movie should have never been made.
Not a patch on the original .. don’t bother
This movie should be renamed Shitstarter.
I can't believe in 2022 with well known actors are doing such movies.
DO NOT WAIST AND WATCH THIS.
"Liar... Liar...Pants... On... Fire."
I cannot believe that's in the movie. And no, don't take this as a "so bad it's good" type of movie, because it's just bad and boring.
As a fan of the book and, in most parts, the original film, I was really looking forward to this remake. What a disappointment.
The use of a John Carpenter score, and the name De Laurentis on the production, it was obviously attempting to have an 80s vibe.
The addition of Charlie’s extra abilities and Andy’s need to crick his neck to show he was going in for a ‘push’, just seemed like unnecessary additions to veer away from Stephen King’s original story.
The script was poor and it seemed like an attempt to merge elements of Carrie with Firestarter to ruin a decent story. Charlie being called ‘weird’ by the other school kids, the constant rantings from Andy about how her ability was bad and her walking through the ‘shop’ burning everything in her path didn’t add anything interesting to the film and just made it more like Carrie.
Very poor and definitely not one I’d watch again.
Very dumb writing. Making dumb decisions. Doing all the wrong things the whole movie.
What a great job they did with the trailer on this one in order to get people to the movie as it was very disappointing and confusing and not at all what the trailer made one seem it would be. The beginning showing flashbacks of the characters in order to give the viewer a premise was very confusing as it made it seem like this was the 2nd film as if there were pieces missing. And those plot points were never really explained fully. Thought this was going to be about a young girl who was gifted with dangerous powers learning to control them and hide them as she was one of a kind, but it was more about other characters as well as she was not the only one with powers and it wasn't a becoming a hero film. It was very horrifically violent as the girl basically burned everything/everyone in her as she looked for revenge. The film just started off bad with confusing/unfinished plot points and ended the film on, "ok everything is gone now," kind of cliffhanger. However, it wasn't all bad as it was entertaining and curious and surprising.
Phone, energy drink, printer, remote, mouse
Sorry don't mind me, I'm just attempting to control my temper as to not obliterate this awful fucking dumpster fire of a remake. VERY sloppy and don't get me started on the atrocious dialog
Animal lovers avoid this one, one scene is extremely triggering (no spoilers)
D- (and that's generous)
7.5/10
Actually a really enjoyable movie from BlumHouse,
And I actually really like this movie.
It's definitely better than the original and I love the vfx on the fire power,
I love how we get a mix of abilities in this one and I appreciated the change in story which made it fresh and interesting.
Charlie did annoy me in the first and second act.
But by the third act I was definitely rooting for
Wanda...er sorry Charlie.
Yes the 3rd act was Awesome.
I thought the pants of Fire line was pretty cool at the end, I mean why wouldn't you say it especially with that ability, and how old is she 12 are something so it made perfect sense.
I didn't appreciate what happened to the Cat
I was pissed with that scene being a massive
Cat person all my life with some myself.
And WTF was that shit
He, She, They are you shitting me,
you could still clearly see it was a
ginger tom so obviously
Male as you don't get female ginger Tom's so that woke line was even more silly bull-shit that made absolutely no sense apart from well being woke and trying to spoil a good movie that I was being entertained by.
That line took me straight out of it.
Apart from that rest was good with some nice
Vfx and I have definitely seen much much worse recently so this movie was an enjoyable surprise.
Ironically, this Stephen King adaptation never catches fire. A short running time and a lack of tension are just two of the movie's problems.
The classic ‘80s horror film Firestarter is remade for a new generation. Based on the Stephen King novel, a young girl with pyrokinitic powers starts to loss control of her abilities and draws the attention of a secret government organization, leading her and her father to go on the run. Zach Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong lead the cast, and both give strong performances; especially Armstrong, who does an impressive job at showing the toll using her powers has on her. The writing however, is rather weak and does a poor job at outlining who this nefarious government organization is and what they want. Also, the pacing is slow and the ending is kind of ambiguous. Still, the action scenes are exciting and director Keith Thomas creates an atmospheric tone that heightens the tension. Firestarter has its problems but delivers some entertaining thrills nonetheless.
This just might be the blandest adaptation of a Stephen King novel. If you are going to be bad, be bad with conviction, go the campy route. This movie is just plain boring.
I've seen bad, but I think this takes bad to an entirely new level. And here i was thinking I was missing out in seeing this. :sweat_smile: Before seeing this I watched the original again. Still a far better rendition of the book. Now, I'm set to read one of my favorite books again so that I can forget this travesty.
The coming-of-age approach that this version proposes is interesting, increasing the age of the protagonist, as a kind of pre-adolescent growth, and the non-stereotyped treatment of the antagonist characters. But it does not improve the monotony of the story with respect to the previous version, nor the lack of depth in most of the characters. It would have been interesting to see what Fatih Akin would have done with this material, but you have to settle for the more impersonal Keith Thomas.
"Yawnmaker"
dull, dull, dull, with a sleepy, repetitive score, some fire effects were ok.
Don't bother. literally worth nothing.
I have no idea why I watch this. I see the trailer and—again—that looks nice. But…
Monotonous story. The film is even very boring, I don't know what the director was thinking.
Damn! She just needs 3 seconds to control the power. I think Avengers and Justice League must learn from her, LOL.
Very bad ending.
this actually felt more like a good old tv movie to me, with some unbalanced acting performances, bad dialogues and badly chosen music. I get that with this chosen style, a certain specified look and feel wanted to be achieved, but in my opinion this is certainly not better than the first Firestarter movie....
Like trying to get the campfire going when your wood is wet: there's a lot going on here, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.
This is standard Blumhouse reboot fare: so unoriginal it's unscary.
I couldn't quite believe how bad this was, it's not often that I would recommend a movie be avoided but this is one.
I place full blame on the dialogue and scripting since I don't think the quality of the cast could have made it any better.
I watched this without comparison to the 80's version (because I don't really recall it in detail) so I feel my review is unbiased by that, it really is just a poor effort that could have been so much better.
Weird remake of something that wasn't all that great to begin with. Crappy acting, shitty script, and horrendous looks. The only redeeming factor is the Carpenters soundtrack.
Unless you have some sort of masochistic tendencies...stay far away.
Rubish, no wonder why people stop going to the cinema.
I don't know what else to say. This is the most disappointing movie I have seen in quite some time. I didn't have high expectations to start but, holy hell, did this film disappoint.
The makers took one of King's more well-known works, which had been made into one of the better King film adaptions, extracted the basic premise and a handful of characters and tossed aside the entire plot. Then tried to weave their own tale and, literally, got lost in the woods.
The film meanders from one scene to the next, never setting a direction, tone, or urgency. The characters are uninteresting, the story is non-existent and I can't say the effects are any better than we got in 1984.
I guess kudos for having Rainbird portrayed by an actual Indigenous person this time. Yay? But what a terribly uninteresting, cardboard-cutout character he is here. And instead of taking the subplot between the Charley and Rainbird that existed in the original story, the makers again felt they could do better. And went nowhere. Nowhere. Just like the rest of this film.
It's just a dull plod for two hours.
Ryan Kiera Armstrong and Zack Efron are decent enough as a daughter and father. Who are hunted because they have Telekinesis powers.
The movie just wasn’t necessary especially by Blumhouse who usually make better original movies than remakes. With Eleven in Stranger Things existing now, a young girl with Telekinesis powers is less fresh than when the original Firestarter came out.
As it is the original Firestarter wasn’t as fresh as Carrie and felt like Stephen King just gave a little girl the same powers.
This Firestarter remake might not have been better if the original never existed either. Since it is still a B-Movie either way. Though, the very end is somewhat touching.
In these days of Marvel and X-Men movies,this is not going to work especially when you change so much from the book "to cut the budgets i think".
The use of john carpenter score is very good though..
What's the point of basing a movie on a book if you're going to change so much?
:heart:x5
This movie left me cold.
See what I did there? But seriously, it's not any better or worse than the original. For me this was just a very blah movie.
How I rate:
1-3 :heart: = seriously! don't waste your time
4-6 :heart: = you may or may not enjoy this
7-8 :heart: = I expect you will like this too
9-10 :heart: = movies and TV shows I really love!
Shout by CaesarBlockedParent2022-05-13T13:10:18Z
A decent coming-of-age drama horror with excellent lead performances. To be honest I didn't enjoy the original adaptation at all. I thought it was uninteresting and overlong, so I went into this re-adaptation expecting it to be at least slightly better and that's what I got. It's more of a drama with horror elements in it. Definitely not scary but it delivers the chills that you usually get from most Stephen King films, thanks to the Carpenter score. It also improves on everything the original did wrong. The characters seem to stick out more and the emotional parts work really well. The technical aspects are great as well, the effects in particular are well made. Give it a try.