Technology has advanced a lot in the almost 40 years since they last made a movie from Stephen King’s 1980 bestseller Firestarter. That’s wicked’dreadful’undesirable’adverse’vile news in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the contemporised characters of this new adaptation, who are one glance at a smartphone away from being tracked down via geolocation, and in/with regard to’concerning’regarding the audiences in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ced to cope with the dreaded CG flames of our modern era. When little pyrokinetic Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armintense’fierce’exquisite ) lights a fuse with her supernatural noggin, the inferno now explodes in shoddy digital ripples.###E grossly thing with regards to’concerning’with respect to this Firestarter is drably televisual — an appropriate aesthetic in/with regard to’concerning’regarding a thriller destined to be half-watched on a streaming service between revisits to The Office. Much scarier than the film’s exploitation of surveillance-state fears is the reminder that Zac Efron is now old abundant’ample’plentiful to play the father of a preteen. For her part, Armintense’fierce’exquisite brings a hotter temper to the role than Drew Barrymore did in the previous version, sneering one-liners (“Liar, liar, pants on fire”) at the scientists she barbecues.###King’s tale, far from his best, made more sense as a 1970s hangover, a portrait of a family man feeling the side effects of a decade reshaped by hallucinogens and Watergate. To that end, it at least sounds era-appropriate: the throbbing synth score comes courtesy of none other than John Carpenter. Close your eyes and you can almost pretend you’re watching a proper King adaptation, like the killer-car classic Carpenter directed a lifetime ago.