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| Film vitals |
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· Year: 1984
· Director: Mark L. Lester
· Writer: Stanley Mann, Stephen King (book)
· Cast: David Keith, Drew Barrymore
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| Series info |
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Part of the Firestarter series.
· Based on the book by Stephen King.
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Amazon.com
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| Synopsis |
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A little girl who can set fires with her mind is on the run from agents of a US government shadow agency who want to use her for military purposes.
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RATING
Out of 100 |
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46
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| COLD ANALYSIS |
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ATMOSPHERE
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GORE
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HUMOR
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SCARES
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TENSION
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Firestarter itself suffers from comparison to Carrie; they're both about a girl with powers beyond her understanding and sometimes beyond her control, they both deal with paranoia (religious and social in Carrie, governmental in Firestarter), and they were both written by Stephen King, who has been accused in the past of borrowing from his own works. Tonally, and in terms of the plot's progression, though, the film Firestarter is its own creature. That's to its detriment, unfortunately; without a neurotic base, like King and DePalma developed in Carrie, the tension doesn't exactly leap from the screen. We see our protagonists do so many things The X-Files taught us not to do that it comes as no surprise whenever the bad guys catch up to them. We do see the ghost of Carrie in a big way in the finale, a scene of gratuitous destruction that has none of the poetic justice nor troubled conscience that marked the prior film. The film's saving graces, however, are its characters and (for the most part) acting. The one exception is Drew Barrymore, who is terrible as Charlie McGee. She's since developed into a decent actor, but didn't she show in E.T. that she was capable of realism even as a child? Here she does nothing but mumble and whine. David Keith, on the other hand, delivers a solid performance as a man who strives for normality amid chaos. Really, Firestarter's one real achievement is the character of John Rainbird, played by George C. Scott as a vaguely spiritual person whose motives and mind are solely his.
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