Stormbreaker
November 25th 2007 22:34
Category: Movies
Director: Geoffrey Sax.
Producers: Marc Samuelson, Peter Samuelson, Steve Christian & Andreas Grosch.
Screenplay by: Anthony Horowitz.
Based on the novel’ Stormbreaker’ by: Anthony Horowitz.
Starring: Alex Pettyfer (Alex Rider), Ewan McGregor (Ian Rider), Bill Nighy (Alan Blunt), Stephen Fry (Smithers), Mickey Rourke (Darrius Sayle), Alicia Silverstone (Jack Starbright), Missi Pyle (Nadia Vole), Damian Lewis (Yassen Grigorivich), Ashley Walters (Wolf), Sarah Bolger (Sabina), Sophie Okonedo (Ms Jones), Andy Serkis (Mr Grin) and Robbie Coltrane (The PM).
Produced by: Samuelson Productions.
Distributed by: 2006 Roadshow Entertainment.
Running Time: 90 minutes. Rating: M.
Anthony Horowitz’ works have often caught my eye as I’ve wandered into my local book store perusing the shelves looking for something to read, so his novel Stormbreaker is known to me along with his various other novels, but I’ve never bother to pick one up. So when I managed to get a hold of this movie adaptation of his first novel I really didn’t know what to expect but then again that’s all part of the fun sometimes with movie watching, every so often a movie is a truly unexpected pleasure and that’s the case with Stormbreaker. After having watched this it does puzzle me as to why it got an M rating, but then again it’s very hard to fathom the rationale behind the decisions of the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
Stormbreaker opens with a scene in a lecture hall in an English school in which the movie’s protagonist, Alex Rider, is one amongst many students. The teacher is giving a spiel about what determines a person’s character, whether it is due to environment, parents, background, where they live etc eventually he then turns to Alex and asks him to tell the rest of the students about his family. He starts his presentation by letting his audience know that he never knew his parents as they died when he was very young, that his main guardian is his uncle, Ian Rider and that the housekeeper his uncle employs, Jack, is the one who’s usually there for him as Uncle Ian is often away on work related business. His uncle is a banker who works for the Royal and General Bank, a very boring job and his uncle is not the most exciting of individuals.
Now as Alex is giving his recounting of the kind of person his uncle is, the audience is actually shown just exactly what his uncle is up to on his ‘business’ trip. Essentially we see Uncle Ian blasting his way out of some kind of industrial complex with a stick of dynamite then zip off on a trail bike hotly pursued by several other black clad motorcyclists. A high speed pursuit along a beach ensues with a boat full of goons one of who is armed with a rocket launcher ensues then from the beach the chase moves into a Cornish fishing community where Uncle Ian suddenly ducks under an overturned old fishing boat. To make sure of things the black clad motorcyclists shoot the boat full of holes then flip it over to see the results of their attack. There is no body and suddenly a silver BMW takes off from concealment behind the overturned boat with Uncle Ian at the wheel. All of these scenes are interspersed with Alex’s speech about his uncle and provide a neat contrast with what he believes about his uncle and what the actual reality is. Unfortunately Uncle Ian ends up getting shot by the Russian hit man Yassen Grigorivich and soon Alex is at his funeral.
Stormbreaker is essentially a spy/action flick where the protagonist is a rather reluctant spy and initially can’t believe that his uncle has actually been grooming him for this role for a very long time. Of course to the big wigs at MI6 this is all rather marvellous as they can just slot Alex into the job that his uncle was doing prior to his death. Unlike James Bond, George Smiley or various other spy characters Alex isn’t motivated to do this for Queen and country, or for glory or even for the thrill and excitement of being a spy, in the end its because his uncle’s housekeeper Jack is threatened with deportation and or a jail term that motivates him to do what MI6 wants. He is sceptical of the whole affair and his ability to pull it off, yet as the movie progresses it can be seen that Alex is a natural at the spy game and that he can play it with the best regardless of his reluctance.
His mission, which resulted in his uncle being killed, is to investigate the mega rich American industrialist Darrius Sayle and his Stormbreaker computer project. Alan Blunt, Ian’s former boss and now Alex’s, explains that the reason why MI6 wants him to investigate Sayle is because MI6 doesn’t trust him, which is due to the fact that MI6 doesn’t really trust anyone. Naturally Sayle is as MI6 believe him to be, a mega rich villain who has with the aid of Yassen concocted a scheme to cause carnage throughout the whole of the United Kingdom with his Stormbreaker computers. It interesting to note that Sayle’s motivation for this act is based purely on revenge, he isn’t motivated by a fanatical ideology, political considerations or even desire to rule the world its all down to getting revenge for his poor treatment as a student in a British school when he was a kid.
For an independent film made entirely in Britain this is an extremely well made and acted production that carries its plot with aplomb and delivers the goods. The action scenes and stunts are fantastic and there are the odd amusing moments that give it an understated English style of humour. It’s also probably an indicator of other things to come, as Stormbreaker was the first of Anthony Horowitz’s novels and judging by this fact along with the success of this movie there is likely to be more movie adaptations of the adventurers of reluctant spy Alex Rider further on down the track. For me this was a truly unexpected pleasure and I loved every minute of it.
Producers: Marc Samuelson, Peter Samuelson, Steve Christian & Andreas Grosch.
Screenplay by: Anthony Horowitz.
Based on the novel’ Stormbreaker’ by: Anthony Horowitz.
Starring: Alex Pettyfer (Alex Rider), Ewan McGregor (Ian Rider), Bill Nighy (Alan Blunt), Stephen Fry (Smithers), Mickey Rourke (Darrius Sayle), Alicia Silverstone (Jack Starbright), Missi Pyle (Nadia Vole), Damian Lewis (Yassen Grigorivich), Ashley Walters (Wolf), Sarah Bolger (Sabina), Sophie Okonedo (Ms Jones), Andy Serkis (Mr Grin) and Robbie Coltrane (The PM).
Produced by: Samuelson Productions.
Running Time: 90 minutes. Rating: M.
Anthony Horowitz’ works have often caught my eye as I’ve wandered into my local book store perusing the shelves looking for something to read, so his novel Stormbreaker is known to me along with his various other novels, but I’ve never bother to pick one up. So when I managed to get a hold of this movie adaptation of his first novel I really didn’t know what to expect but then again that’s all part of the fun sometimes with movie watching, every so often a movie is a truly unexpected pleasure and that’s the case with Stormbreaker. After having watched this it does puzzle me as to why it got an M rating, but then again it’s very hard to fathom the rationale behind the decisions of the Office of Film and Literature Classification.
Stormbreaker opens with a scene in a lecture hall in an English school in which the movie’s protagonist, Alex Rider, is one amongst many students. The teacher is giving a spiel about what determines a person’s character, whether it is due to environment, parents, background, where they live etc eventually he then turns to Alex and asks him to tell the rest of the students about his family. He starts his presentation by letting his audience know that he never knew his parents as they died when he was very young, that his main guardian is his uncle, Ian Rider and that the housekeeper his uncle employs, Jack, is the one who’s usually there for him as Uncle Ian is often away on work related business. His uncle is a banker who works for the Royal and General Bank, a very boring job and his uncle is not the most exciting of individuals.
Stormbreaker is essentially a spy/action flick where the protagonist is a rather reluctant spy and initially can’t believe that his uncle has actually been grooming him for this role for a very long time. Of course to the big wigs at MI6 this is all rather marvellous as they can just slot Alex into the job that his uncle was doing prior to his death. Unlike James Bond, George Smiley or various other spy characters Alex isn’t motivated to do this for Queen and country, or for glory or even for the thrill and excitement of being a spy, in the end its because his uncle’s housekeeper Jack is threatened with deportation and or a jail term that motivates him to do what MI6 wants. He is sceptical of the whole affair and his ability to pull it off, yet as the movie progresses it can be seen that Alex is a natural at the spy game and that he can play it with the best regardless of his reluctance.
His mission, which resulted in his uncle being killed, is to investigate the mega rich American industrialist Darrius Sayle and his Stormbreaker computer project. Alan Blunt, Ian’s former boss and now Alex’s, explains that the reason why MI6 wants him to investigate Sayle is because MI6 doesn’t trust him, which is due to the fact that MI6 doesn’t really trust anyone. Naturally Sayle is as MI6 believe him to be, a mega rich villain who has with the aid of Yassen concocted a scheme to cause carnage throughout the whole of the United Kingdom with his Stormbreaker computers. It interesting to note that Sayle’s motivation for this act is based purely on revenge, he isn’t motivated by a fanatical ideology, political considerations or even desire to rule the world its all down to getting revenge for his poor treatment as a student in a British school when he was a kid.
For an independent film made entirely in Britain this is an extremely well made and acted production that carries its plot with aplomb and delivers the goods. The action scenes and stunts are fantastic and there are the odd amusing moments that give it an understated English style of humour. It’s also probably an indicator of other things to come, as Stormbreaker was the first of Anthony Horowitz’s novels and judging by this fact along with the success of this movie there is likely to be more movie adaptations of the adventurers of reluctant spy Alex Rider further on down the track. For me this was a truly unexpected pleasure and I loved every minute of it.
| 55 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
