Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker October 14, 2007

My quick take on “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker”: if you’re not a kid or a teenage girl, just read the book. Or the graphic novel adaptation. Because, really, the only reason to watch it is Alex Pettyfer. He’s the perfect Alex Rider (read: really cute!).

If you’ve read the book, you know what to expect. The movie is pretty faithful to the book. Not surprising, since Anthony Horowitz, who wrote the book, also wrote the screenplay. For those unfamiliar with the story, Alex Rider thought he was just a regular 14-year-old boy living in London. Until the day the police came to tell him his uncle was dead. Alex had lived with his uncle, Ian Rider, since he was a baby (his parents died in a plane crash). Now the authorities were saying that Ian was dead, killed in a car accident because he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. But Alex knew his uncle, and he knew there was no way Ian Rider would have been in a car without his seatbelt fastened. But why would they lie about something like this?

That’s when Alex started noticing things, like the strange men at his uncle’s funeral, and how all the files from his uncle’s home office were being stolen, not to mention the bullet holes in his uncle’s car. Turns out, Ian Rider wasn’t a banker like Alex thought he was. He was a spy for MI-6, British Intelligence. And now MI-6 has seen Alex in action, and they want him to complete his uncle’s last mission, the one that got him killed.

*cough* Now that I’ve basically finished my booktalk… It’s not so much that “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker” is a bad movie as much as I don’t think it lives up to its potential. There’s a lot of action and cool stunts, but not much else. Kids will like it, girls (okay, and women) will enjoy looking at Alex Pettyfer, but from an adult perspective, the rest of the movie is mediocre and unsatisfying. This is definitely no “The Bourne Identity.” And an overly tan Mickey Rourke with blue eye shadow is just wrong, even if he is the villain.