Stormbreaker

I hereby give the First Annual Michael Bay Award for Most Irritatingly Edited Action Movie to Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker.

This is a pet peeve of mine.  Too often, action movie set pieces have become flurries of quick cuts, showing the scene from every conceivable angle.  It's meant to build up excitement, but to me, the result is a loss of clarity (in an action sequence, you need to know where everyone is in relation to the others) and a reminder that what you're watching is, in fact, a movie, taking the viewer out of the story and making the scene, ironically, less compelling.  Michael Bay is the popularizer of this technique, but the blame for its spread isn't his alone.  It's spread because of editing software that makes fast-cutting easier, and the fact that new directors often cut their teeth on commercials and music videos, where such cutting is par for the course.  Stormbreaker (which is the movie's title everywhere but the U.S., where I guess they're trying to grow the Alex Rider brand) had this in spades - scenes which were decently staged and could have been exciting were cut as if the filmmakers assumed the audience members all had ADHD.

Aside from that, how was the movie?  Cliched, very much James Bond for kids, but watchable.  Had a sense of humor, but could've used more.  All you need to know about it is that my son who likes the Alex Rider books liked the movie, and my son who doesn't like Alex Rider didn't.