Since “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker” is a family film (and since his character dies within the first few minutes), Ewan McGregor actually manages to keep his trousers on the whole time he’s on screen.
Take that back – the film is not really ideal for the whole family, just for those members ages 8-12. Anyone older than that will probably find this British spy flick vaguely entertaining but mostly boring. Anyone who’s ever seen a James Bond movie has seen all this before, and seen it done better.
Girls, meanwhile, will go gaga over dreamy newcomer Alex Pettyfer, whose blond, non-threatening good looks would have made him right at home during the boy-band craze of the late 1990s. Who cares that he’s painfully bland? He’s just so cute zooming around on his bike and kicking the butts of an international array of bad guys.
Pettyfer plays McGregor’s nephew, 14-year-old Alex Rider, who learns that Uncle Ian wasn’t just a super-busy businessman but a secret agent who was killed in a car chase while on assignment. In no time, Ian’s mysterious bosses (a sharply dressed Sophie Okonedo and a humorously awkward Bill Nighy) recruit Alex to take his uncle’s place. All those years of scuba diving and martial arts training weren’t just for fun, apparently.
And actually, Alex has no choice in the matter. If he says no, the agency will arrange to have Ian’s longtime live-in housekeeper, who’s also Alex’s only friend, sent back to the United States. (Though as played by Alicia Silverstone with that typically scrunched-up face and dippy delivery, you’d rather prefer to see her deported.)
So Alex’s mission, which he is forced to accept, is to infiltrate the headquarters of high-tech mogul Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke in sleazy pimp suits and bad facial hair, all of which seems redundant), who’s on the verge of placing revolutionary, virtual reality-style computers, called Stormbreakers, in every classroom in England. Sounds altruistic, but his intentions are far more nefarious.
Alex skulks around, gathering intel with the toys the agency provided him (a pen that contains sodium pentathol, etc.) while trying to avoid falling into the dastardly clutches of Sayle’s right-hand woman, Nadia (Missi Pyle, who’s so cartoonish she may as well be looking for moose and squirrel). Stephen Fry, serving as Q to Alex’s young Bond, provides a few laughs as he explains how to work the various gadgets.
The action sequences from director Geoffrey Sax (“White Noise”) are colorful enough, but nothing spectacular.
But here’s the real mystery to be solved: The script comes from Anthony Horowitz, based on the first novel in his Alex Rider spy series. How is it possible to take your own work and make it less interesting?
Alex Pettyfer stars in “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker.”
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