Stormbreaker (film)
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| Stormbreaker | |
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 Stormbreaker poster |
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| Directed by | Geoffrey Sax |
| Produced by | Marc Samuelson Peter Samuelson Steve Christian Andreas Grosch |
| Written by | Anthony Horowitz (novel and screenplay) |
| Starring | Alex Pettyfer Ewan McGregor Mickey Rourke Bill Nighy Andy Serkis Alicia Silverstone Ashley Walters Sarah Bolger |
| Music by | Alan Parker |
| Distributed by | Entertainment Film Distributors (UK) MGM/The Weinstein Company (USA) |
| Release date(s) | July 21, 2006 (UK) October 6, 2006 (US) |
| Running time | 93 min. |
| Country |  United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | £25,000,000 ($40 million) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Stormbreaker is a 2006 spy film based on Stormbreaker, the first novel in the Alex Rider series. It stars newcomer Alex Pettyfer as the teenage spy alongside noted actors Mickey Rourke and Ewan McGregor. The film was renamed to Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker for the United States release. An 5-minute excerpt from the film was used in the 2008 OCR AS Media Textual Analysis examination.
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[edit] Production
Author Anthony Horowitz, already an established and prolific scriptwriter in British television, wrote the screenplay and worked very closely throughout the film's production with director Geoffrey Sax and producers Marc and Peter Samuelson. The Weinstein Company acquired the North American rights to the film, which was filmed in Summer 2005 with six weeks on the Isle of Man and a further six weeks in London.[1]. The film had a budget of £25 million ($40 million).
In 2005, young actor Alex Pettyfer was cast as Alex Rider. He was picked out of five hundred hopefuls who auditioned for the role.[2] Pettyfer was originally offered a role in the then-upcoming film Eragon but turned it down, noting that he preferred Stormbreaker because it would be filmed nearer home while Eragon would film in the Czech Republic, and Pettyfer is afraid of flying [3]
In June 2006, the producers of the movie signed a deal with Nintendo that made the Nintendo DS a prominent feature in the film, much like the Power Glove in The Wizard.[4] This is an upgrade from the Game Boy Color that Alex used in the novel version. In addition to the Nintendo marketing in the film, Alex's mobile phone is a Nokia 7710 and he uses a sodium pentathol (otherwise known as truth serum) pen to get to London, not a gun.
In August, 2006, the film was renamed to Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker for the United States release. A new poster (shown left) and trailer were released along with the announcement. It was also revealed that the US premiere would take place on the Intrepid aircraft carrier at the Hudson River, New York.
The name of the principal villain also changed from Herod Sayle to Darrius Sayle, with his nationality switched from Lebanese (Egyptian in the US version of the novel) to American. This was because Mickey Rourke was already in talks to take on the role, so Horowitz adapted the character to suit him.[5]
[edit] Plot
Alex Rider (Alex Pettyfer) is a fourteen year-old orphan, who lives with his uncle Ian Rider (Ewan McGregor) and their housekeeper Jack Starbright (Alicia Silverstone). Ian is supposedly a bank manager and is, much to Alex's regret, often away from home. One day Alex is told that his uncle has died in a car crash. Alex discovers that Ian Rider was in fact a spy working for MI6 and that he was killed by famed assassin, Yassen Gregorovich (Damian Lewis).
He is then recruited by his uncle's former employers, Alan Blunt (Bill Nighy) and Tulip Jones (Sophie Okonedo) of the Special Operations Division of MI6, who explain to Alex that his uncle has been training him as a spy; Alex first refuses to co-operate but agrees when they threaten to prosecute Jack (now his guardian) for being an illegal immigrant. Alex is then sent to a SAS training exercise where his fellow trainees first look down on him because of his young age, but he soon gains respect for his capabilities.
He sets off on his first mission, aided by gadgets from Smithers (Stephen Fry). Billionaire Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke) is donating a free high-powered computer system codenamed Stormbreaker to every school in the United Kingdom. MI6 are curious of his seemingly generous plans and send Alex, undercover as a competition winner, to investigate. There, he meets the man himself, Sayle and his two accomplices, Mr Grin (Andy Serkis) and Nadia Vole (Missi Pyle) and is shown the Stormbreaker computer in action. Later, while Alex is having dinner with Sayle, the suspicious Vole steals Alex's phone and tracks the SIM card to his house in Chelsea, London. She goes there and finds Alex's true identity. While she is there, she starts a fight with Jack. Jack wins with the help of a blowfish, leaving Nadia to flee from the scene. Still troubled by the events, Alex sneaks out of his bedroom window to observe a midnight delivery of mysterious containers to Sayle's lair.
The next day, Alex finds himself in trouble when his cover is blown. After trying to escape from the facility and being held prisoner, Alex is forced to reveal he is a spy. He then learns of Sayle's true plan with the computers - each system contains a deadly virus which wipe out the whole of Britain's schoolchildren. Sayle, before he departs for the Science Museum in London, leaves Alex to be killed by a Portuguese Man O' War. Alex is chucked in to the tank and Nadia repeatedly takes photos of Alex struggling underwater. Alex then escapes the beast by using the zit cream Smithers gave him and the tank explodes. Nadia is caught by the blast of water and the jellyfish stings Nadia to death. Alex then escapes on a jeep and manages to get on a helicopter piloted by Mr Grin. He shoots an arrow into his neck, containing an obedience serum and Alex tells him to fly to London. Just as Sayle and the Prime Minister (Robbie Coltrane) are about to activate Stormbreaker, Alex appears through the roof of the museum and halts the procession.
Alex then realizes that Sayle has a back-up plan, and with the help of Jack and school friend Sabina Pleasure (Sarah Bolger) he pursues Sayle through the streets of London. Fifty floors up on one of Sayle's skyscrapers, Alex reaches him and unplugs his backup plan. An angered Sayle chases him out onto the roof and pushes him off but Alex manages to hold onto the cable he had pulled out of the socket. Sayle is about to shoot Alex but Sabina arrives distracting him momentarily until she too is pushed off the building and left hanging off the cable. Just as Sayle is about to kill them both Yassen Gregorovich, Ian Rider's killer, arrives in a helicopter and shoots Sayle. Alex swings Sabina onto a balcony and is then rescued by Yassen who takes him to a Helipad. Alex tells Yassen that this doesn't change anything and that one day he will kill him, Yassen then tells Alex that he should return to school and forget it ever happened.
The film ends with Alex and Sabina at their school. After the events, Sabina was forced to sign the Official Secrets Act but Alex maintains to her he is not a spy. High up on a nearby building, a cameraman focuses on Alex.
[edit] Cast
[edit] Reception and box office
Critical reaction to Stormbreaker was mixed. BBC movie critic Neil Smith gave the film three out of five stars but criticized the "unsubtle turns" from both Bill Nighy and Stephen Fry.[6] The Hollywood Reporter branded the film as a "a lame and disappointing affair". Although likening it to both the Harry Potter and James Bond series, reviewer Ray Bennett said the film "lacks any kind of suspense" due to the script. He ended saying that Stormbreaker was unlikely to have a "license to kill [a pun on the 1989 Bond film] at the box-office".[7]Rotten Tomatoes rated Stormbreaker a 33% on its website as well, stating that it was a movie "strictly for the children". [8]Cinema Blend reporter Josh Tyler gave the movie two and a half stars out of five, and said that, "Most of the problems with Stormbreaker all boil down to believability."[9] Boston.com's reporter Wesley Morris also gave Stormbreaker two stars out of five, and said that "Geoffrey Sax's filmmaking holds few surprises... but it's swift and competent, despite too many shots of cars on roads that bloat the running time."[10]
Worldwide, the film grossed $23,492,130.[11]
[edit] Sequel
As Stormbreaker was not a box office success[11], any sequel was previously unlikely. [12] However, writer Anthony Horowitz has stated that he has already completed a script for a potential sequel based upon his follow-up novel, Point Blanc.[13]
[edit] References
- ^ Stormbreaker filming finishes. BBC News Online (2005-08-14). Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ Maddocks, Fiona (2006-07-20). Calm amid the storm. The Scotsman. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ He Was a Teenage Spy, Surrounded by Treacherous Adults. The New York Times (2006-07-18). Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ The Nintendo DS - Heading to a theater near you!. The Nintendo DS - Heading to a theater near you!. Go Nintendo (2006-06-27). Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ Carr, Kevin. An Interview with Anthony Horowitz. 7(M) Pictures. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ Smith, Neil (2006-07-21). Stormbreaker (2006). BBC Films. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ Bennett, Ray (2006-07-26). Stormbreaker. The Hollywood Reporter.
- ^ Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Tyler, Josh (2006-09-27). Stormbreaker. Cinema Blend.
- ^ Morris, Wesley (2006-10-13). 'Stormbreaker' is kid lit without the pages. Boston.com.
- ^ a b Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.
- ^ "Horowitz speaks out on Stormbreaker film", BBC, 2006-06-17. Retrieved on 2007-09-18.
- ^ Point Blanc (2008)
[edit] External links
- Official site
- Stormbreaker at the Internet Movie Database
- Stormbreaker at Rotten Tomatoes
- Stormbreaker at Box Office Mojo
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