Firestarter

Firestarter

Stephen King wasn't exactly in peak form when he wrote Firestarter, so this 1984 movie adaptation was at a disadvantage even before the cameras rolled. There were so many King movies being made at the time that this one's weaknesses became even more apparent. In her first film role after her memorable appearance in E.T., Drew Barrymore stars as a little girl whose parents acquired strange mental powers after participating in a secret government experiment. From this genetic background she has developed the mysterious ability to set anything on fire at will, especially when she's angry. That makes her very interesting to government officials seeking to exploit her skill as a secret weapon. Her father seeks to protect her by using his powers of mind-control, and George C. Scott plays an Indian who believes the girl must be destroyed. There's a routine climax involving a lot of impressive pyrotechnics, but none of this is grounded in a dramatically solid foundation, and none of the characters are developed enough for us to care about them. So the movie gradually turns into a laughable thriller with no suspense whatsoever. It's a movie only a pyromaniac could love. --Jeff Shannon

Genre: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Production: MCA Universal Home Video
  2 nominations.
 
IMDB:
6.0
Metacritic:
50
Rotten Tomatoes:
38%
R
Year:
1984
114
1,934 Views
If you get on her bad side...YOU'RE TOAST.
She has the power . . . an evil destructive force.
Charlie McGee is a happy, healthy eight-year-old little girl. Normal in every way but one. She has the power to set objects afire with just one glance. It's a power she does not want. It's a power she can't control. And, each night, Charlie prays to be just like every other child. But there are those who will do everything in their power to find her... or destroy her.

Doctor Joseph Wanless:
Ever since this child was born, her father has been trying to inhibit her use of those powers. But what if his control had weakened now?

Captain Hollister:
Why would he lose control, now, after all those years?

Doctor Joseph Wanless:
Ask yourself this question. How exhausting must it have been for Victoria and Andrew McGee when this child was an infant? The bottle is late, the baby cries, and at that moment, one of her toys right there in the crib beside her bursts into smokey flame.

Captain Hollister:
Joe, she's just a little girl. She can light fires, yes. But you're making her sound like Armageddon!

Doctor Joseph Wanless:
Yes!... and that's what it might well be. Suppose lighting fires is just the tip of the iceberg?

Captain Hollister:
I don't know what you're talking about.

Doctor Joseph Wanless:
I am talking about a talent that is directly linked to this child's pituitary gland; undeveloped pituitary gland. What happens when she becomes adolescent and that sleeping gland wakes and becomes, for 20 months, the most powerful force in the human body? Suppose we have a child here who, someday, is capable of creating a nuclear explosion simply by the power of her will?

Captain Hollister:
[Laughs] That's insane.

Doctor Joseph Wanless:
Is it? Is it? Then allow me to progress from insanity to utter lunacy. Suppose there is a little girl out there, somwhere today... this morning!... who has within her, lying dormant at present... the power someday to crack the very planet in two like a china plate in a shooting gallery?

[Captain Hollister is silent]


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