Review: 'Firestarter,' once again, doesn't generate enough sparks for a Stephen King adaptation.

You know how film snobs always say Hollywood shouldn’t remake classics, but remake bad movies that had a spark of potential? That doesn’t work out so well, either — as a new version of Stephen King’s paranoid thriller “Firestarter” shows.

The 1984 version was notable for being the first big movie 8-year-old Drew Barrymore made after “E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial.” It was a random mess of a movie, with anonymous agents chasing down little Charlie McGee and her dad because she has the power of pyrokinesis — starting fires with her mind.

The new version starts much the same way, with college kids Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) going in for some pharmaceutical research and coming out with stunning powers. Vicky has telekinesis, being able to move objects with her mind, though she seldom uses it. Andy can “push” others into doing things and thinking things that would never have occurred to them. Andy once used this power to make two agents — who were stealing their baby, Charlie, from the maternity ward — kill themselves, so the family has been living as fugitives.

In the movie’s present-day, Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is 11 years old, and bullied by the other kids at her school. She tries to hold in her rage, which leads to her surroundings getting very hot — enough to draw the attention of Capt. Hollister (Gloria Reuben), head of the shadowy agency known only as DSI.

Hollister calls upon a retired assassin, Rainbird (played by Michael Greyeyes), who has powers of his own. His mission is to bring in Charlie, alive, so Hollister’s agency can start studying her powers and possibly exploiting them. Killing Vicky early in the proceedings is just part of the job.

The bulk of Scott Teems’ script, adapting King’s novel, centers on Charlie and Andy on the road — as the father belatedly tries to train Charlie in the controlled use of her awesome power, and seeing if she can pull off any of her parents’ tricks, too. This could have made for some strong action sequences, along with some tender daddy-daughter time between Efron and Armstrong. But Teems and director Kevin Thomas don’t have the skill to make those scenes work, as evidenced by their attempt to give Armstrong’s Charlie her own sequence, a training montage that plays like a peewee rendition of a Rocky Balboa sparring session.

The acting is serviceable enough for a cheap horror movie, but none of the onscreen performers really make the audience shiver. If anyone does, it’s the guy making spooky music as composer: Horror maestro John Carpenter, working with his son Cody and frequent collaborator Daniel Davies.

So who gets the blame for two lackluster adaptations of the same Stephen King novel? Is it the filmmakers, unable to make an interesting premise work over the course of a full movie? Or is it King, for serving up an undernourished book and hoping the filmmakers will put some meat on the bones? I don’t have an answer, but the argument would be a hotter ticket than anything in “Firestarter.”

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‘Firestarter’

★1/2

Opens Friday, May 13, in theaters, and streaming on Peacock. Rated R for violent content. Running time: 94 minutes.