 It's been like two days since the last Hollywood reboot, so here we are again with Fire Starter. The original version came out in 1984 and starred Drew Barrymore. They're both based on a book by Stephen King, I think. I actually don't know what this version was based on. I do know this though. Afterwards, I wanted to set myself on fire. 2022's Fire Starter has Zac Efron and Kurt Wood Smith for one minute. There's gonna be spoilers in this rant-ish review because the movie's awful. It's only an hour and 35 minutes long, felt like seven. When a movie's bad, it really starts to drag. When a film has nothing going for it in any sense of the word, it is misery beyond all compare. Let me talk about the one and only positive of the film. Ryan Keira Armstrong, who plays little Charlie in this, the Fire Starter girl, she's good. All right, get, get out of here, positives. We're done with you. It's time to talk about this smoldering pile of ass that is Fire Starter 2022. Oh, and if you don't wanna hear the spoilers, but still wanna see this for yourself, by the time this review gets out, it'll be on Peacock. So if you have a subscription to that service, check it out on the cock. That's right friends, Fire Starter comes home to pee right on that app day one with the theatrical release. I saw it the night before because I like to see movies that little extra bit ahead of time so I can be the first to tell you it's terrible. I know what you're thinking. Adam, just saying a movie sucks or it's terrible or it's garbage or it gave you AIDS, that's not anything, I need specifics. Let's dive head first into the cinematography. What an ugly looking movie. It has no contrast to it. It's very desaturated. The whole thing is flat. It's like watching Paris Hilton on a surfboard. Remember Paris Hilton? I'm in touch. There's a scene later in the movie where I swear they just used that good old fashioned day to night filter. It's just a whole pile of blue going on. Everything's like two dimensional. There's no layer to any of it. And I swear there is a 2% blur added to everything just to fuck with my eyes. Even the camera placement itself is bewildering. And I noticed this director has done virtually nothing before this. So he's very young. He's very fresh faced in the game. Stop. Just do something else. This isn't working. The camera is off center so far to one direction opposite of the character they're talking to. You should be inviting the audience to go the direction you're speaking. So if someone's that direction, I should be off this side of the frame a little bit so that you can see which way I'm directing my conversation to. I lied before just dawned on me that there are two positives in this movie. The second being John Carpenter's score, which I'm pretty positive is just repurposed from the original movie. But the last section of the film, that music starts to really pop. I'm loving it. I'm feeling it. They definitely pumped up the beats a little for this new version. Again though, it's all for nothing. Because what I'm looking at here is such a snorefest. Again, I'm basing my impression entirely off of this film. So nothing against what Stephen King wrote here. I just can't imagine this follows that book closely at all. If you're looking for a film that's scary, this is not it in the slightest. It's not even a thriller. It's not a comedy. It's not an action adventure. It is nothing. There's not even drama and big characters die in this film. Remember, I am spoiling things. So we'll get to one pretty early on in a second, but the basic plot is this. Zac Efron is Professor Xavier. He has those abilities, but he needs his eyes to look into people in order to control what they think. It's almost more of a Jedi ability where instead of waving his hands, he just eye fucks you. And it is Zac Efron, so he may have that power in real life. His blushing bride is Jean Grey. I know it's kind of a weird comparison to think that Professor X marries his student, but it happens in real life. Anyway, in this situation, she has telekinesis, Kyle. She can move things with the power of her mind. And these two jackasses give birth to a beautiful little girl that has both their powers plus fire abilities. She's pyro, baby. The family unfortunately can't settle down to have a nice life together as mutant freaks. They're constantly on the run by the people that created them. This shadow government that's gonna stop at nothing to get their hands back on them for the profit. I don't know, warmongering, it's unclear, but they really want this family, specifically Charlie. So the family's off the grid. They don't use credit cards. They don't use Google. They don't have phones. And of course, they enroll their kid in public school instead of homeschooling. Just makes sense. Especially when she's a tinderbox, ready to explode when someone looks at her wrong. And eventually this happens at school. Some kids are picking on her and one throws a ball at the back of her head when they're playing dodgeball. Clearly a bullshit move. This is in front of the coach and the teacher. I don't know why they're both there, but they don't say anything to the dirtbag kid who does this. They even let him have a high five with his buddy. So she storms out, goes into the bathroom, throws a fit, and I'm just pissed off thinking, really? You're not gonna call those kids out for being dicks? Like you throw a ball at the back of a person's head. That's a shit move. You need to take that kid down a peg or three. But the teacher goes in, sees that the bathroom is in complete disarray, and then she blows the door off the bathroom stall. And we're kind of scared now. We're like, whoa, Charlie's unhinged. What could she possibly do next? And honestly, not much. I guess she starts her mom's arms on fire. That was fun. That was a fun situation. The mom's like, Charlie, no! Ffff! Oh! She's like Harry from Home Alone, just completely dear in the headlights about it, doesn't try to put her arms out or fall on the ground or do anything. It's just, ah! It's like Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura 2. Ah! Ah! Ah! Which reminds me, some of the fire stuff in this film is so lazy. In the final act, Zach Efron, the dad in this of Charlie, he's in a room with, I don't know, strong female agent lead. And she's like, if you burn me, you're gonna burn your dad too. So the girl's like, eh, boom, burns him. And they instantly cut to a shot that's clearly dummies, just stock dummies on fire. No sound effects, and that's it. That's the final shot of the dad. No emotional stake at all, not thought about again, no tears shed. And the mom died earlier, and they don't say shit about her until they bury a cat. And then she's just kind of like nonchalantly thrown in, like R.I.P. to the cat and eh, yeah, your mom. What? And speaking of cats, that is by far the best scene in the film. If the movie had more moments like this, more Hollywood magic, such as the scene I'm about to describe, this would be a different scenario. I could say, yes, go see Fire Starter, it's hilariously bad. But there's really just this one little nugget that shines in the film. Little Charlie's outside, trying to hone her craft by moving things, and with a little stray alley cat comes up. It's like, meow. And she goes up to her like, hi, cat. And the cat instantly goes feral, like, ha, and scratches her. She's like, fuck, woof, and just flames go up in front of her. You just hear, meow, it's so bad. And then Zac Efron comes over and he's like, oh! Actually, he doesn't do that. Zac Efron has no emotion in this film. He comes over and he's like, burned a cat, huh? Well, you better put it out if it's misery. And they show the cat completely wrecked. It's still on fire, there's like a magma around it, and the cat's like, argh. Efron turns to his daughter. I think his name is Andy in this, but I like calling him Zac Efron. He turns to her and he says, gotta finish the kill, put it out if it's misery. And Charlie's like, okay, I am the Fire Starter. And the cat, argh. Essentially what you're watching is a worse version of the Dark Phoenix than we've already been given in two X-Men movies. That's how bad this is. The antagonist of the picture outside of the weird shadow government thing is one of their hires, who's an assassin. Also a patient of theirs. I can't remember what his ability is. It was a little unclear what he could actually do. I think Reed Mines, maybe? He's just really good at killing stuff. Anyway, he killed the mom and he's on the hunt to bring Charlie back to the organization. And she wants to kill him back, dad. And fortunately for her, there's a perfect opportunity to do so. And she tells her dad, dad, he's outside, I'm gonna go kill him. She heads out there after he blows the heads off of four cops, throws a Ryu Fireball, her door open, blows the door open, starts to walk out. And then I guess forgets what she was doing because instead of killing the guy, which is her goal, three seconds back, she just stares at him and then lets her dad Andy come out to say, run away Simba and never return. So she takes off running. Andy, bear in mind, his power is his force abilities with his eyeballs. He can look at you and implant a thought in your head. What does this guy have in mind with his infinite wisdom? The perfect plan, of course. He makes the bad guy not able to see Charlie as she's running away. She's there one second and then beep beep boop boop boop boop boop. She's gone and he's like clever gal. She goes to the compound the very next scene. It had no purpose behind it. Why doesn't Andy have the guy shoot himself? Or I don't know, evade this whole situation by doing that whole magical ability in his daughter when she's born and she starts doing fire shit. Just tell her, you can't start fires. Oh, he has a throwaway comment where he won't do that. He won't use his ability against her until he does. And in the situation, it's to burn everything to the ground, essentially turning his daughter into a killing machine. Well, done. Good job, Zac Efron. That's just good parenting. The film ends with Charlie and the assassin becoming best friends and they walk down the beach together. She forgave him for killing those innocent cops and her mom because it's been a day. It's been a day. He pretty much killed the dad too because he's the reason he got captured. Why was Kurt Woods Smith in this film? Why was this movie made? Why did I waste time watching it? There's so many questions. So many questions. Well, there you have it. 2022's Fire Starter, a contender for one of the worst films I've seen this year so far. Well done. As a bonus moving forward when I remember, I'm not only gonna talk about the movie itself, but the theatrical experience. I'll rank that from one to 10 because that kind of plays a part in your psyche watching the film. And in this case, it's a one out of 10. One, being dog shit bad horrible. But why, Adam? There couldn't have been that many people at the theater. Well, you're a right complete stranger on the internet. There wasn't. There was four. Only four. I'm one of the four. So there's three others besides me. A couple that was gaggling the whole film talking quietly enough where it didn't bother me that bad, but I was right in front of them. So I just moved up a couple of rows, which was a huge mistake because that placed me two rows in front of the other guy that was solo. A sketchy individual who appeared to have brought an entire hobo sack's worth of candy in. Rappers went off throughout the entire film. They'd come out of his pockets. They'd come out of his nap sack. Everything had cellophane on it. The loudest plastic on planet earth. Psst. This gentleman also must have had a deviated septum or something medical wrong with him because throughout the entire movie, he sounded like a noisy machine behind me. Sounded like throughout the picture. Trying to hear the movie. Are you sleeping? Are you dying? Ladies and gentlemen, we have the hat trick of douchebags brought in his own candy with wrapping that was very loud and obnoxious throughout the whole film. Loudly breathed through his nose or his mouth or other orifice I couldn't possibly explain. And the third and final cherry on the top of this ass Sunday, he was on his phone the entire film. Thankfully the third thing didn't bother me because he was behind me. I just know because every time I would look back to see what he was breathing out of, he had his phone up at his face. Entire time, entire film. Why are people going to movies anymore? Now the couple talking and this jag with all his issues isn't even enough to warrant a one by the scale I go off of which is miserable movie experiences I've had. This is like a three or four really. But the crown really rests upon the top of this prince when the power went out during the film 35 minutes in. Whole thing went dark. Would have been cool if it lined up with something exciting in the film but that would mean something exciting in the film had to take place which it didn't. I got up out of my chair I said folks, I'll check it out. I went outside. The guy was already kind of scrambling out. He's like, stay in your seat. Just a power trip. We're bringing it back up. I go back in, I sit down. Do you think the movie starts back where it left off? No, no, no, no, no. It's like they arbitrarily decided somewhere around the 20 minute mark is where they left off. That's where we're going. So I had to repeat 15 minutes of footage. It was a nightmare. And that's how this experience hits a one by my standards. Now, because the movie was so bad, that stuff didn't really affect it at all. In fact, it might have been a welcomed retreat from what was up on the screen. So it might have been kind of a counter, a blocker of sorts because I was a little bit interested what was going on with this guy. And on occasion, I kind of wanted to jump in and listen to the conversation they were having because it was much more interesting than what was happening on the screen. So there you have it, a two for one. My review of Firestarter and of the theatrical experience. Both were atrocious. Let me know in the comments if you watch this movie at home on the cock or if you went out and saw the film. By the way, the only reason I went to see it in theaters is because I have that regal pass that I pay for 21 bucks a month. So I want to keep getting use out of it, you know? And seeing a movie on the big screen is superior for me still than being at home because I get all the pageantry that comes along with it. Like sketchy hobos coming in up the streets with a sack full of food and nothing but time on their hands. And apparently a paid up cell phone plan. But let me know if you watched it in the comments below or if you have any interest or if you just have something to say about this review. I'm all ears. Like the video if you had a good time. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't and please tell your friends and family it'd be nice if this channel grew a little bit faster and hopefully I'll see you next time. There's other videos and stuff you can watch over here. Actually it's on the other side of me but I'm trying to be a like the movie Firestarter and bring your eyes the wrong direction because that's artsy. That's filmmaking baby. That's Firestarter. If you really want to make a difference in a young buck's life like myself maybe think about joining me on Patreon at patreon.com slash adam does movies or become a member right here on YouTube via that join button. You get exclusive videos, other membership perks that these common peasants don't get. Plus you're helping out a small indie channel like myself grow. I would appreciate it.