What we've got here is a case of self-betrayal. Anthony Horowitz is a children's author who created a character named Alex Ryder, sort of a James Bond, Jr. type who gets to save the world during recess or some such rot. The books, according to the various reviews put up on Amazon are rather good, and he's written several other volumes in the series that seem to be selling well, but the screenplay he wrote for the film version of the series' first book is a bit of a mess.

The film starts rather nicely, with super-spy Ian Rider (Ewan McGregor), being chased by a bunch of nasties, while his 14-year-old nephew Alex(Alex Pettyfer) is reading a report to his class about how he has no parents and his uncle is never there. The chase scene is cute, but seems too much like out of one of the Roger Moore James Bond movies, you know, the ones where we fans of Sean Connery were hoping that MGM would put Mr. Bond out of his misery…well this is sort of like that, and after blowing away a couple of dozen bad guys, our hero calls home to say that he's going to be a little late for dinner. That's when the villainous Yassen Gregorovich (Damian Lewis) climbs down from his helicopter and shoots him. Cut to the opening credits.

With our young hero orphaned again, so to speak, he and his caretaker/mommy substitute Jack(Alicia Silverstone) discover the truth, and so our hero is dragooned into working for MI6, Britian's spy agency. Unfortunately, this isn't the organization James Bond worked for, but the one Austin Powers did. MI6 boss Alan Blunt(Bill Nighy) and his deputy, Mrs. Jones(Sophie Okonedo) are cartoon characters in human drag, and the bad guy, Darrius Sayle(Mickey Rourke), and his two top flunkies: Mr. Grin(Andy Serkis) and Teutonic ice-maiden Nadia Vole(Missi Pyle), actually dress as if they were. This doesn't help matters, especially due to the schizophrenic nature of the film.

It goes back and forth between cartooniness and actual action-hero stuff, and thus there's really no sense of danger, even when Alex is dangling from a rope at 10 thousand feet. Pettyfer is okay. He's a pretty boy with athletic skills and can actually emote from time to time, it's just the rest of the cast hamming it up that really grates. If you're going to do comedy, do comedy. If you don't don't.

The fact that the books were full of humor should have informed the director that it should have been jokier, but no. This is as serious as a heart attack with a Snidely Whiplash/Wile E. Coyote plotline, which is why this fails. Maybe it's just as well that there won't be any more of these. I don't know if Alex has much of a fanbase here. We'll see.

Eric Lurio

Related links:
IMDB: Stormbreaker (2006)