I am left disillusioned with movies after watching Stormbreaker. I cannot fathom why this tediously boring and flaccid movie was made. Did someone just wake up one morning and decide that it would be a grand idea to turn the extra twenty-five million pounds they have lying around into a Potter-Bond action extravaganza? I bet it was a fifty year-old man with a penchant for blond, blue-eyed, adolescent boys. I cannot imagine anyone else being interested in this movie.

Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer) is a fourteen year-old wunderkind whose bank manager uncle (his parents died when he was little) is mysteriously killed in a car crash. Shock horror, his uncle was actually a spy, and now Alex is the only one who can save the world from the virus (the green liquid in the fragile looking test tube) that the wicked wicked American, Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke) is about to spread.

In vying for the prize of the most unoriginal movie yet, it steals every sequence and gag from some successful predecessor in the genre, flopping in an attempt to pay homage or act as satire. It starts with the usual Bond action opening followed by the title song, has a bit of The Italian Job action music strewn about in the middle, and some Harry Potter skill and bravery thrown in for good measure. Alex is clearly supposed to be Baby- Bond, supported by an abundance of stalwart British actors (like Steven Fry as Smithers, aka Q) tarnishing their good reputations through their involvement. We also encounter Oddjob, the death-at-thetentacles- of-a-marine-predator-in-a-tank, and Alex’s love interest; creepily called Sabina Pleasure (Sarah Bolger).

I think this movie represents the state of the movie world as a whole at the moment. I find myself wondering, each week, which will be the least awful movie to go see. If the industry is so unashamedly profit motivated that no one lifts a finger to prevent trash like Stormbreaker from being made, I suggest that you get your entertainment from Aro Video or a book.

DIRECTED BY GEOFFREY SAX
Cinemas Everywhere