Would you by any chance – I’m just hazarding a guess – be in the mood for a little light relief? Would you seize an opportunity for mindless fun that will not deplete your emotional or mental resources in the same way that engaging with the real world – where to ingest one minute of headline news is to hole yourself beneath the psychic waterline – unavoidably does?
You would? Good news – Amazon Prime recognises you and delivers unto you an eight-part adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling Alex Rider books. This initial outing is based on the second book – Point Blanc – with the origin story from book one worked in so that we all know how an unassuming schoolboy becomes the keystone upon which the entirety of “a specialised subdivision of the British security intelligence service” depends. (Stormbreaker, the inaugural adventure, was presumably skipped over by the TV execs as a result of the deeply unsuccessful film version that was released in 2006. As it centres on a plot to release a deadly virus into schools, they must be on their knees thanking the god of bullets dodged.)
For those who have not had the pleasure – or who have not raised or engaged with child readers born after about 1990 – Alex Rider (played here by Otto Farrant, and bringing appreciably more to the role than is written into the serviceable script) is a teenage James Bond. In the books, he has mad physical skills plus gadgets galore to help him on his missions, which occur at pace and in a variety of exotic locations (including space), strewn with villains presiding over the grandest of evil plans.
Alex has been aged a little for the television version, as has – more subtly – everything else. There are far fewer gadgets, and the relationship between Alex and his Uncle Ian (he starts as an orphan in the books, cared for and unwittingly trained in survival skills by “boring banker” Ian, played by Andrew Buchan) is established before the latter is killed in the line of secret duty. As a result, Alex’s loss is a real and motivating feature of the show.
The plot too is slowed down – although there is enough slick whizz-bangery and set pieces to hold the attention while it grinds into gear. At the time of his death, Uncle Ian was on the trail of Point Blanc, a mysterious academy for the troubled, or perhaps merely troublesome, offspring of billionaires. Particularly the kind of billionaires who keep falling down holographic lift shafts and coming to various other forms of harm and premature end.
What the specialised subdivision of the British security intelligence service really needs, of course, is a young espionage agent who can infiltrate Point Blanc and find out what’s really going on. But who? But who? Fortunately, its head, Alan Blunt (Stephen Dillane), is a bright and practical man. He sees that Alex has been left in a state of readiness by his uncle’s covert training and has no qualms about blackmailing the reluctant boy into agreeing to undertake the mission. Along come child protection to take him into care and immigration officers to deport his beloved housekeeper Jack Starlight (Ronke Adekoluejo) – who has quietly put her life plans on hold in the wake of Alex’s bereavement – and so Alex is co-opted.
It still takes four episodes to get him to Point Blanc itself, which is all of a piece with the odd weighting of the series and its tonal variations. It clearly wants to be (for financial reasons, presumably, as it is commonly understood to be the death of artistic endeavour) all things to all age groups, from older fans of the books up into the far reaches of their parents’ generation. The retrieval of a confiscated phone by Alex for his best friend (an effortful sidekick part for Brenock O’Connor that he does his best with) is succeeded by a gritty meet-and-murder scene that is then followed by a super-speedy bike chase through the suburban streets, for example. But by the end of episode two our teenage hero has been flung into a van and tortured for information. Sometimes you feel like you’re watching Jason Bourne: the Toddler Years and at others straight Spooks.
The series will probably benefit from the fact that adults don’t have the bandwidth at the moment to cope with much more than it offers. With any luck, it will buy Alex Rider time to find its feet, decide on its audience and fully realise the vision that floats just underneath the spectacle.
