AFTER SCHOOL ACTION HERO

REVIEWED - STORMBREAKERTHERE are some good things in this frantic adaptation of the first of Anthony Horowitz's popular novels concerning a teenage secret agent named Alex Rider. Recalling British cinema's dark days in the 1970s when every decent character actor appeared in every terrible sex comedy, the film is awash with amusing cameos from people who might otherwise be challenging for Oscars (plus Mickey Rourke).

Damian Lewis is satisfactory oily as a Russian hoodlum. Rourke, wearing that blue eye-shadow popularised by The Corrs some years back, phones in a hilariously blasé turn as a lunatic, once bullied by the future prime minister at school, who intends to spread mayhem by distributing deadly computer hardware.

The film's finest moments come, however, courtesy of Bill Nighy's spasms and twitches as Rider's psychotically eccentric boss. Bill, never dull, even in the most ghastly film, offers a masterclass in how to make something out of nothing.

The plot will do well enough too. Alex's uncle (blink and you'll miss Ewan McGregor), who has brought the boy up, dies in mysterious circumstances. Following the funeral, around which men with earpieces lurk, it becomes clear that the older Rider was, contrary to his claims, not a banker, but an MI6 operative. After infiltrating the organisation's lair beneath Liverpool Street Station, Alex is inveigled into taking on a dangerous mission.

It's all carried off with some flash and a fair degree of elan.

Sadly, Stormbreaker has a big, dull middle-class void at its centre. Alex Pettyfer, previously the lead in Tom Brown's Schooldays on television, is still a young man and we would not wish to hinder his nascent career by indulging in too many cheap cracks. Let us just whisper the words "Chesney Hawkes" and leave it at that.