- Story (spoiler warning!!!)
Alex Rider is a fourteen year-old orphan, who lives with his uncle Ian Rider and their housekeeper Jack Starbright. Ian is supposedly a bank manager and is, much to Alex' regret, often away from home. One day Alex is told that his uncle has died in a car crash. Alex discovers that Ian Rider was in fact a spy working for MI6 and that he was killed by famed assassin, Yassen Gregorovich.
He is then recruited by his uncle's former employers, Alan Blunt and Tulip Jones of the Special Operations Division of MI6, who explain to Alex that his uncle has been training him as a spy; Alex first refuses to co-operate but agrees when they threaten to prosecute Jack (now his guardian) for being an illegal immigrant. Alex is then sent to a training camp where his fellow trainees first look down on him because of his young age, but he soon gains respect for his capabilities.
He sets off on his first mission, aided by gadgets from Smithers. Billionaire Darrius Sayle is donating a free high-powered computer system codenamed Stormbreaker to every school in the United Kingdom. MI6 are curious of his seemingly generous plans and send Alex, undercover as a competition winner, to investigate. There, he meets the man himself, Sayle and his two accomplices, Mr Grin and Nadia Vole and is shown the Stormbreaker computer in action. Later, while Alex is having dinner with Sayle, the suspicious Vole steals Alex's phone and tracks the SIM card to his house in Chelsea, London. She goes there and finds Alex's true identity. While she is there, she starts a fight with Jack. Jack wins with the help of a blowfish, leaving Nadia to flee from the scene. Still troubled by the events, Alex sneaks out of his bedroom window to observe a midnight delivery of mysterious containers to Sayle's lair.
The next day, Alex finds himself in trouble when his cover is blown. After trying to escape from the facility and being held prisoner, Alex is forced to reveal he is a spy. He then learns of Sayle's true plan with the computers - each system contains a deadly virus which wipe out the whole of Britain's schoolchildren. Sayle, before he departs for the Science Museum in London, leaves Alex to be killed by a 'Portuguese Man O' War' [The creature shown in the film bore no resemblance to the actual Man O' War]. Escaping the beast (which in turn kills Nadia), Alex manages to get on a helicopter piloted by Mr Grin. He shoots an arrow into his neck, containing a truth serum [which also appears to make the target extremely obedient], and Alex tells him to fly to London. Just as Sayle and the Prime Minister are about to activate Stormbreaker, Alex appears through the roof of the museum and halts the procession.
Alex then realises Sayle has a back-up plan and with the help of Jack and school friend Sabina Pleasure he pursues Sayle through the streets of London. Fifty floors up on one of Sayle's skyscrapers, Alex reaches him and unplugs his backup plan. An angered Sayle chases him out onto the roof and pushes him off but Alex manages to hold onto the cable he had pulled out of the socket. Sayle is about to shoot Alex but Sabina arrives distracting him momentarily until she too is pushed off the building and left hanging off the cable. Just as Sayle is about to kill them both Yassen Gregorovich, Ian Rider's killer, arrives in a helicopter and shoots Sayle. Alex swings Sabina into a balcony and is then rescued by Yassen who takes him to a Helipad. Alex tells Yassen that this dosen't change anything and he will never forget him.
The film ends with Alex and Sabina at their school. After the events, Sabina was forced to sign the Official Secrets Act but Alex maintains to her he is not a spy. High up on a nearby building, a cameraman focuses on Alex...
