August 7, 2006
This movie was pitched as a junior James Bond, and it doesn’t disappoint; it’s a light-hearted, often very funny, action romp, featuring newcomer Alex Pettyfer as Alex Rider, a reluctant teenage spy recruited by a heartless MI6 boss to complete the mission that killed his more experienced uncle.
The plot is a bit clunky, but this is more than made up for by the performances of stellar supporting actors, including the mad-eyed Missi Pyle, wonderfully OTT as a sadistic Austrian blonde, the fabulous Bill Nighy as Mr Blunt of MI6, alternately sinister and touching, the divinely charismatic Damien Lewis as a red-haired Russian baddy, and gorgeous Ewan McGregor as Alex’s (sadly) deceased uncle Ian.
The film has its tongue firmly in its cheek when playing with the Bond conventions we all know and love – Alex goes off to Hamley’s toy store to meet Q-equivalent Stephen Fry. “I get gadgets?” he enquires hopefully as he is presented with a variety of high-tech surveillance equipment and weaponry.
My daughter informs me that Alex Pettyfer is off-the-scale cute, and he is indeed scrumptious, successfully combining Alex Rider’s improbably lethal martial arts skills, teen moodiness and entirely believable grief for his uncle with a coltish adolescent grace. His performance grounds some of the sillier elements of the film, notably a grotesque caricature of a performance from Mickey Rourke as Sayle, the chief baddy, who has decided to annihilate all British schoolchildren with a lethal virus because he was bullied at school. But plenty of Bond villains have equally silly motives for their dastardly deeds and we shouldn’t complain. The budget was clearly not up to Bond standards, but all in all it’s a tremendously enjoyable piece of escapism, and I look forward to seeing more of young Pettyfer when he’s all grown up.
The plot is a bit clunky, but this is more than made up for by the performances of stellar supporting actors, including the mad-eyed Missi Pyle, wonderfully OTT as a sadistic Austrian blonde, the fabulous Bill Nighy as Mr Blunt of MI6, alternately sinister and touching, the divinely charismatic Damien Lewis as a red-haired Russian baddy, and gorgeous Ewan McGregor as Alex’s (sadly) deceased uncle Ian.
The film has its tongue firmly in its cheek when playing with the Bond conventions we all know and love – Alex goes off to Hamley’s toy store to meet Q-equivalent Stephen Fry. “I get gadgets?” he enquires hopefully as he is presented with a variety of high-tech surveillance equipment and weaponry.
My daughter informs me that Alex Pettyfer is off-the-scale cute, and he is indeed scrumptious, successfully combining Alex Rider’s improbably lethal martial arts skills, teen moodiness and entirely believable grief for his uncle with a coltish adolescent grace. His performance grounds some of the sillier elements of the film, notably a grotesque caricature of a performance from Mickey Rourke as Sayle, the chief baddy, who has decided to annihilate all British schoolchildren with a lethal virus because he was bullied at school. But plenty of Bond villains have equally silly motives for their dastardly deeds and we shouldn’t complain. The budget was clearly not up to Bond standards, but all in all it’s a tremendously enjoyable piece of escapism, and I look forward to seeing more of young Pettyfer when he’s all grown up.