Charlie McGhee (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is a young girl with the ability to set things on fire just through the power of thought. Her parents Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) have kept her hidden from a shady operation that want to exploit her as a weapon for her entire life but now they are closing in. 

Firestarter is based on a 1980 Stephen King novel which has previously been adapted into a film of the same name in 1984. Unfortunately I have not read or watched either and there were plenty of times during this adaptation that I wished I had. The reason being is that this film feels barely finished with very little sense of a comprehensible plot. 

Ultimately Charlie and Andy spend a very short period of time on the run whilst we get a few flashbacks to try and explain the source of her powers before quickly ending up in a final showdown. 

The special effects are poor on what seems to be a film with a low budget for its specific needs and the actors are pretty hamstrung by a bare bones script that gives us little room for world or character building. I particularly felt sorry for Gloria Reuben who plays ‘the big bad’ with some gusto but frankly ends up looking silly given the context. 

This is one of those films you are happy to discover only has a run time of 94 minutes.