It's OK and has its strengths. It starts off well. The parts before Alex gets into his stride as an agent are by far the best. Every scene with Brenock O'Connor in is excellent - he steals the show, which is a big achievement because he had only a hackneyed stock character ("hero's cheery friend") to work with. Otto Farrant does a workmanlike job and is best in those early scenes, but he has insufficient charisma to carry the series. It's a tough role: once Alex becomes action man all nuance has gone and this version does nothing to make him more interesting. They've even taken away his gimmicky toys. When he gets his makeover to become Alex Friend, it's built up as an event, but in reality he just gets a slightly shorter haircut. There is no attempt to make him seem a bad boy who might need to be sent to a reformatory. In fact the Point Blanc school nearly kills the whole thing. It's a boring place, visually and in every way. It's lifeless and the scenes there go on too long. The tiny number of other students there are dull even before anything happens to them. James (the one who looks like Snape) sometimes has an Australian accent, but that's just about his only interesting feature. The plot collapses during the Point Blanc scenes (vast holes open up, which I won't go into). Almost all the adult roles are cardboard characters and the biggest names in the cast are playing them. It might all improve if there are future series, but Otto Farrant is already well over age for the role of a schoolboy, so I don't know how that would work.
Review of Alex Rider
