![]() ![]() By the end of episode two, Alex, who has already dealt with the possibility of going into care and his housekeeper/friend Jack (Ronke Adekoluejo) being deported, finds himself kidnapped, bundled into a van and tortured for information. Yes, folks, even though it may be based on books that are often read by kids as young as nine, this Alex Rider is gritty stuff and it's not babyish at all. While the rather lame opening credits feel as if they have been borrowed from a Timothy Dalton-era Bond movie, when the action starts (and it starts right away, with a businessman plummeting down a lift shaft to his death) it feels more like Jason Bourne Junior, packed with meetings in abandoned buildings, shoot-outs, double agents, and suspicious looking goons lurking on every darkened corner. The teen ( Otto Farrant) – who is around 14 in the early novels but a bit older here (he goes to a party where there's booze!) – has been raised by his uncle Ian following the death of his parents.Īlex thinks Ian is boring and works in a bank but when he dies in a car crash, the curious school boy investigates and discovers his uncle was actually a spy for a secret government offshoot of MI6 called The Department, run by Alan Blunt (Stephen Dillane).įortuitously, Ian had been covertly training Alex to be just like him – though up until this point Alex's skills had mainly been used to steal his friend Tom's ( Game of Thrones' Brenock O'Connor) confiscated phone from a teacher's locked drawer – so Blunt and his second-in-command Mrs Jones ( Line of Duty's Vicky McClure) want to recruit him as they need someone to infiltrate a mysterious school in the French Alps called Point Blanc for a case that may be linked to Ian's murder. The series has been written by Guy Burt, who has worked on British dramas including The Borgias and The Bletchley Circle, with Horowitz on board as executive producer and, on the basis of the first two episodes, it's a slick, fast-paced and enjoyably gritty adaptation of the second Alex Rider thriller, Point Blanc, that remains true to the source material while thankfully ditching some of the more dated (and, dare we say, daft) aspects of the 2001 novel.Ī few elements of the first book remain to set the scene and introduce Alex to those who haven't read the YA novels. ![]() ![]() Alex Rider minor spoilers for episodes 1 and 2 follow.Īlex Rider fans can release the breath they've been holding in for months – yes, 20 years after the first Alex Rider novel Stormbreaker was published, author Anthony Horowitz's bestselling teenage spy series finally gets a decent screen adaptation with a new eight-part TV show (launching in the UK on Amazon Prime). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |