"He's not a child, he's a lethal weapon" So there's this fourteen-year-old kid who can drive fast cars, fly planes, is a multi-linguist, a top marksman and can kick some serious ass - what could be cooler than that if you're a fourteen-year-old boy? Well, apart from dating anyone from Girls Aloud, not a lot. Based on the best selling novels by Anthony Horowitz, young Alex Rider (Pettyfer) has been unwittingly trained by his late uncle all his life for a life as a super spy. When MI6 come calling, Alex is forced to undertake a mission that will save millions of lives.
It's a good idea and worked well on paper but Stormbreaker lost some of its magic in the translation to the big screen. Adapted by Horowitz himself, Stormbreaker revels in the high-octane action but leaves character empathy a lot to be desired. The script lacks spark and originality but all it needed to do was put a machine gun in the hand of a young teenage boy and have him blow away a lot of bad guys to find its audience and it did that with aplomb. Newcomer Pettyfer, who looks a little like Ryan Phillipe's younger brother, was hand picked by Horowitz and he does an okay job, the only job the shaky script would allow. The stellar supporting cast are mainly reduced to cameos, which is a little disappointing, as it could have given the film some gravitas. Alex Rider won't give Mish Monneypenny any shleeplessh nightsh but Shtormbreaker doesh the job it came to do. Enough shaid.
