Popped into the Troc to watch kiddie Bond Stormbreaker today. It does exactly what it says on the tin, but quite cheaply with its all-star (but mainly British or cheap Yank) cast. Posho surly teen lead is ultra bland, but I liked him for the sheer fact that he was blonde and thus looks like a slightly younger version of me. Will not do Potter business, not charming enough. Nevertheless, things explode, chases happen and THE STATE OF THE NATION IS ADDRESSED – in as much as the PM is played by Robbie Coltrane in a “haven’t you got rid of Tony Blair yet: I am meant to be Gordon Brown” sort of way.
You can tell that it is adapted from a kids book, because the villains rationale is one only a kid would understand. Mickey Rourke, badly playing a bad guy, wants to kill all schoolkids in the UK because his white trash US background meant he got bullied at a UK Public School. He wants to kill all the kids in the UK, because he was nicknamed smelly at school. The actual machinations of this plot is so ludicrous when put on screen than suspension of disbelief is almost impossible. And yet the film managed to leave me almost on the edge of my seat.
Its the final reel. Our hero Alex Rider is scrapping with Rourke, hanging of the top of a fictional City building which dwarfs the Gherkin (one of those mega pickled chillis youget in kebab shps?). Rourke takes a shot at Rider, but is shoved at the last minute by his girlfriend. Shot goes wild: cut to Bill Nighy, Alicia Silverstone and Sophie Okonedo on the ground (and seemingly in different films – and only Sophies’s being any good). They bark orders, and a pigeon plummets from the sky. Good joke on the wild shot. And then the screen goes black.
There’s been a power cut in the cinema and we are escorted out. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT???
Well I know that Rider will (not necessarily in this order) get the girl, kill the baddies and save the entire planet. Do I need to see how? Maybe sneak in after something else has finished eh? Irony alluded to in title however comes when I leave the cinema as thunderstorm is tickling London and I am told that apparently a substation was hit by lightning, hence the power cut.