Stormbreaker (PG)

Starring: Alex Pettyfer, Ewan McGregor, Mickey Rourke, Bill Nighy, Sophie Okonedo, Alicia Silverstone, Missi Pyle

Alex Ryder(who is played by Alex Pettyfer who also stared in Tom Browns School Days which was a TV programme) was an ordinary young lad when his uncle was sent on a mission to stop a man from killing millions of innocent people. However, when his uncle was killed in the line of duty the MI6 asked Alex Ryder to train as a spy to gain evidence to thwart the plan of Darrius Sayle (Mickey Rourke who starred in Angel Heart, and played the voice of Jericho in driv3r). Sayle’s evil plan is to plant a deadly virus in his new invention called STORMBREAKER which is a brand new computer system.

The story unfolds charting his progress in becoming a spy and surprisingly depicted the Brecon Beacons as the training area for Special Forces. During his training he met a group of army men who were annoyed with their commander because they were assigned with Alex (who they call “Cub”), but they have a change of heart when Alex saves then from a “prison” as part of their exercise.

However, this movie doesn’t focus on character development, instead it’s about action, action and action. If you want an action one then this is for you, the film is only one and a half hours long compared to “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest” (which was about two and a half hours long). The characters were good and played well but others portrayed their characters really differently (like Bill Nighy).

The soundtrack was very modern and had some cool songs (mixture of pop and rock). The special effects were not bad (on a par with the James Bond franchise) and the vehicles were excellent (like the hummer H2, the BMW Z4 and Yamaha DT500’s were in it as well).

I would like to thank Terry of Leicester Odeon (Freemans Common)

By Spike