So you remember Stormbreaker?
I suspect some of you wish you could forget. I reviewed it
twice (here and here) A movie that was intended to start a franchise but
delivered its material in such a way that it became self-parody. It was
over-the-top, ludicrous and diverged from its source material in frustrating ways
but I still ended up kinda liking it.
I’m not exactly surprised that the franchise it hoped to
spawn didn’t materialise, its launch in America was badly managed by the
Weinstein Company.
Enter Amazon to give the idea of an adaptation a second
wind. They greenlit a series for their streaming service, starting this time
with the second book in the series, Point Blanc, and incorporating elements of
Stormbreaker into it rather than adapting Stormbreaker again, a wise decision,
all things considered.
For reasons I don’t really understand whilst the series debuted
on Amazon’s Prime Video it was later moved to the ad-enabled IMDb TV (now VeeTee), where its
second season also debuted.
I have read the Point Blanc Novel but not recently, so I’ll be judging this show on its own merits, whilst making only vague reference to the book.
Lies
We open in New York City, a city famous for not having Alex
Rider in it. A man of suspicious intent finds a back way into a Roscorp
building (Norman Osborn should sue something) and uses a device in a server
room to get a look at the layout of the building.
Upstairs, a kid named Parker is getting his tie sorted as
his father asks what he’s planning before he leaves for other business. He’s
off to an exhibition. His father offers him lunch and he agrees to it. The man
from earlier traps the elevator on the top floor of the building. Parker’s
father, who we find out here is called Michael finds a card from an institution
named Point Blanc and decides to cancel all his appointments for the day. He
calls Alan Blunt saying he’s concerned about Parker but fails to notice that
when the elevator doors open, the elevator isn’t in it and falls to his death.
After some credits roll, we get an ad, and cut to London, a
city famous for having Alex Rider in it and we’re introduced to the school and
hallelujah, they’ve remembered that 14-year-olds wear school uniform in
Britain. Alex and his best friend Tom are having some witty banter about a film
project or something, Tom suggests filming some footage at a party, and peeks
Alex’s interest by saying Ayisha would be there.
Tom gets his phone confiscated, and at day’s end hasn’t got
it back for some reason. Said phone has the address for the party they want to
go to, and it’s up to Alex to demonstrate his skills and get the phone back.
Alex gets back into the building but a couple of seconds later, a couple of
teachers arrive, with Tom forced to haggle a phone from a stranger to warn Alex
that they’re coming. At the very least it helps Alex identify which the dozens
of confiscated phones is his. Seriously, isn’t the rule usually collect them at
the end of the day?
He gets the message and decides to run for it, which is dumb
and gets him caught by the teachers. This gets him a stern talking to by his
Uncle Ian and basically gets himself grounded for the weekend. We’re introduced
to Jack Starbright, who’s seemingly a little less together than she was in the film, it
was her job to buy food and she didn’t because she was busy doing stuff, got a
takeaway and is intended to fake it like it was her own work, oh and she spent
the whole budget and only has enough for half the week.
At dinner, Ian views news footage from the death of Michael,
whose business empire is now in Parker’s hands. Alex remembers Parker from one
video some time ago where his dad in the face with a cream cake. Turns out this
prank had serious consequences for Parker who got sent off to a boarding school
somewhere and came back like this. He doesn’t know where, but a quick Facebook
search reveals that the facility was Point Blanc in the French Alps.
Ian has some choice words for Jack after the school tried to
call her and she didn’t reply, turns out she was busy getting her graduation
papers. Anyway, she was only intending to do this job part time whilst she got
her degree and now she’s thinking about leaving.
Alex and Tom facetime, whilst the phone was confiscated,
they did manage to get the address, somehow [why did they need the phone then?]
and when Ian leaves on business, Alex’s seizes his opportunity and he and Tom
head to the party.
Ian drives with a partner Martin Wilby, who explains a
Russian Contact had requested to meet them in person, he had completely froze
when the name Point Blanc was mentioned on the phone. They meet in some
abandoned place in the middle of nowhere with zero surveillance. Ian and Martin
arm themselves in case of unexpected trouble.
Tom tries to endear himself with some chick with talk about
x-men, always a winner, and Alex is appropriately awkward with Ayisha. Oh and
there’s alcohol at this party, which can only lead to trouble. Also, the X-men
are currently an Island nation who’s main enemies are a robot from the future
and also flowers or something, but mostly their own internal politics, real
grit right there. He calls it a metaphor for LGBTQ, which is kinda accurate,
the X-men were intentionally an allegory for racism, and they certainly
incorporated that aspect into the films [“have you ever tried, not being a
mutant” springs to mind] but I digress, this gets him puked on, though not for
the reasons you might expect. He’s having better luck than Alex.
In the creepy garage Ian finds Yassan Gregorovich, and Ian already knew it was him behind the incident in New York. Martin as it turns out
is a double-agent and sold him out. Ian gets a bullet to the head and another
to the stomach, although Yassan is somewhat apologetic about it. He then shoots
Martin in the shoulder so it looks less suspicious when he calls it in.
Alex rides home, looking rather happy in spite of the fact I
don’t think he enjoyed himself much at the party. His smile soon fades however
when he sees the police sirens in front of his house. He’s told his father died
in a car accident, that he was over the speed limit at the time and it was bad
enough that seeing his body would not be the best idea.
MI6 are looking over the crime scene, it was a clean shot
with a 9mm round and whilst the head of this operations, Alan Blunt wants to
talk to Martin, he tasks Mrs Jones, his deputy to speak to Alex. Alex is
immediately suspicious about the circumstances of his death, as his Uncle does
not break the speed limit. He also mentions that Point Blanc was the last thing
his uncle said to him.
Martin’s cover story is immediately debunked by Blunt, but
Martin plays a clever game, saying it was Ian who called him so it was Ian who
was lying. It’s suspicious, but with nothing concrete to go on, his job’s safe,
for the moment.
Alex’s suspicions are worsened as he rings up all the local
hospitals and none have any record of admitting him, even to the mortuary. And
Tom’s arrival is timely as Ian still had his phone, which still had the find my
phone app on so they can trace the car, back the industrial warehouse area.
This was the last location the phone recorded before its battery died.
Blunt and Mrs Jones discuss Point Blanc, replaying the
voicemail left for Blunt in the opening scene and a Russian man whose children
also attended Point Blanc, the business card for the institute was found at the
homes of both men. Alex and Tom head to the warehouse but find it crawling with
suits. Time for Alex to put his skills to use again, recording footage of the
suits dealing with Ian’s car, he’s spotted but Alex is able to beat the guy
unconscious, only stopping there because Tom holds him back.
Alex sees cars leaving the place and decides to follow them
on his bike. He follows them into a heavily fortified car park, unfortunately
the driver of the car spots him
“I know Krav Maga”
“Well, I know shooting people in the head”
Gotta admit; that made me chuckle. Blunt is impressed and decides that they
need someone like Alex to proceed with their investigation, so they reveal the
truth to him. Of course, Alex is less than impressed with them, being the
emotionally unstable teenager, blaming them for Ian’s death. He tells them to
piss off and walks away, but Blunt tells him to pick up the phone in the
morning if he changes his mind. Mrs Jones is not exactly thrilled with this
idea.
After the next ad plays, we cut back to Alex’s house, and
time for the rude awakening as immigration arrive saying that Jack’s visa is
fake and immediately afterwards Child Protective Services arrive to relocate him.
OK, they kinda missed something obvious here, Jack’s visa was presumably an
educational one, and now she’s graduated it no longer applies, they could’ve
used a legal loophole there without making up any bs about it being fake.
Anyway, Alex picks up the phone and says he was already
planning to take the mission, and now they’ve shown him they’re a bunch of
manipulative arses. He gets them all to back off and then heads with Mr Blunt
into the awaiting car, without being able to Jack what the hell he’s doing,
despite her concerns.
And that was Lies, a pretty solid start to the season,
establishing an interesting tone aimed clearly at an older audience than the film, even daring to show a little bit of blood. There are some minor
issues that I hinted at during the review, but overall, a solid opening.
Rating 8/10
Interrogation
Alex gets debriefed on the situation with Point Blanc, their
plan is to have Alex go undercover at the school, as it’s the only way to get
intel from there without getting everyone killed. They have some evidence
linking the two deaths I mentioned but no idea on the how or why, same with Ian
Rider’s death. Still, it’s back to regular school the next day, dodging
questions from Jack and conspiracy theories from Tom. Not being able to tell
him everything sucks for Alex as he now has to go back on everything he
suspects and pretend he believes is a crash, which Tom will of course see right
through.
If there’s any positives, it’s that Ayisha comes up to give
her condolences. Turns out the gun was manufactured in Korea; they think
someone came for the North Korea defector that Ian once helped. Mrs Jones
thinks the story may be too credible. Mr Blunt is busy meeting with an old friend
to help arrange Alex’s cover story.
Alex is pulled out of class by a Mr Daniels from the Greif
Counselling Service, he was apparently referred to by the police but it’s
pretty soon after the door is closed, he reveals alternate intentions, he
apparently works for another government department who wants Mr Blunt’s
department shut down.
Alex decides not to answer his questions and is saved by
Tom’s timely arrival but is warned of other interested parties who he should be
wary of. Tom took immediate notice to his shoes and how they seem abnormally
polished for someone of his standing. Tom calls for Mr Daniels and hears a
completely different voice answer the phone.
Mrs Jones is assigned by Blunt to be Alex’s handler as he
goes through the mission. She continues to voice her disapproval
On his way home he’s knocked out and shoved into a van by
mysterious individuals. His face half covered in blood he’s interrogated by the
leader of this gang, Wolf. He wants to know who his uncle worked for. Alex was
supposed to be watching a movie marathon with Tom but when he didn’t show, Tom
calls Jack and now they’re both worried.
Alex continues to not answer any questions and asks for
water, still refusing to answer questions he’s strapped into a chair and
subjected to bright lights and loud noises. Alex responds by singing his own
song. Jack’s concerns as heightened as the police ignore her. She forces Tom to
give her the password to his computer and reviews the footage recorded on the
phone of the agents taking away Ian’s car.
Wolf then tries to use Jack and Tom as leverage against
Alex. Alex convinces Wolf to show him the paper-clipped file, gets himself back
in the chair with the music. Jack has managed to peace it together and has a
confrontation with Mrs Jones, but she is also unaware of where Alex is.
Wolf changes the torture from loud music to water. Much of
Wolf’s pack, if you will, are against continuing the torture but before they can
shut it off, Alex is gone, having used the paper clip from earlier to escape
the cuffs. Because of the water his body temperature is low enough that thermal
imaging can’t find him. Alex tries to make a run for it, but he has no idea
where he is and him getting hot from the exercise is enough to get him visible
to thermals.
He heads to the top of the hill to get visibility and spots
a car coming, and it turns out to be Mr so called Daniels. When Alex refuses
his help, the floodlights shine and he’s surrounded, with Mr Daniels also
drawing a gun on him. Alex has long worked out that this was an exercise to
test his ability to cope under interrogation, which he passed.
Jack tells Alex that they’re going to walk whilst patching
him up but Alex is ready to defy her on that, Wolf isn’t any more impressed
than the rest of his squad about doing this to a child, but Mrs Jones, who was
earlier furious that she was the last to know about this training mission,
refuses to tell him anything. Yassan meets up with Martin, who is not aware of
what they’re doing with Alex, having been out of commission with his injury.
Martin tells Yassan that they believed the NK cover story, but promises to tell
him if Point Blanc comes up in conversation.
Alex will be posing as Alex Friend, son of the Billionaire
David Friend that Blunt spoke to earlier. They’ve created a cover-story about
him being involved in some poisoning prank to explain him being entered into
the facility and will shortly be relocated to the Friend Mansion in order to
deepen his cover.
We cut to the Point Blanc facility where Eva Stellenbosch
and Dr Greif, the principal antagonists of the season are conversing, Eva
believes that 2 murders in such a short span means they’ll be more easily
detected. Greif counters that they always planned for one more and this one is
perfect, whilst on the desk we see the file for Alex Friend.
So that was Interrogation, a very different interpretation
of Alex’s training, it may verge a little far for some but I like how Alex
reacted. In fact, most characters acting like rational human beings is somewhat
of a staple thus-far, still it’s a slow build and we have only a marginal
amount of the book’s plot done so far.
Rating 8/10
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