"I'm a firestarter. Twisted firestarter." It's pretty sad that these lines from the 1996 hit by The Prodigy is the first thing I think of when I hear the word "firestarter". This is quite telling as to my actual opinion of not only this movie but the Stephen King novel it is based on. Like most people my age I went through a period of my teens where I couldn't get enough of King. I inhaled all of his novels in a short amount of time and pretty much loved all of them but, for the life of me, could remember very little about Firestarter when revisiting this adaptation for the first time since seeing it on VHS in the mid-80s.

Things start on the run as Andy (David Keith) and his daughter Charlie (Drew Barrymore) are fleeing from your typical suited, mysterious government agents. In between scenes of them scrambling away we're given a few flashbacks that explain why they're targets. Looks like Andy was part of an experiment while in University that gave him the power to control people's minds at the expense of a bloodied nose and headaches. Along with his fellow lab rat Vicky (Heather Locklear) they get married and have Charlie who gained the power of pyrokinesis giving her the ability to set things on fire with her mind - including a moment where she almost burns her mom alive.

Obviously, with them having such gifts, the government wants to capture them and exploit their powers. A top secret faction called "The Shop", run by a stoic Captain Hollister (Martin Sheen), soon hires ruthless assassin John (George C. Scott) to hunt them down and, at around the halfway point of the movie, he tranquilizes them and takes them back to their labs so they can run more tests. Andy is separated from Charlie, John pretends to be a lowly janitor to befriend her, and Hollister continues scheming. This all, of course, leads up to a finale where the captors get their comeuppance at the hands of Charlie - and snaps us out of our boredom coma we've been dwelling in for most of the flick.

I'd forgotten how many recognizable faces show up here. Obviously Barrymore was the main drawing card after winning people's hearts as Elliott's little sister in E.T. and she's mostly weak though I do admit to getting a lot of unintentional chuckles when her hair starts wildly blowing in the wind every time she's about to use her power. Keith is pretty solid even though he spends a lot of time clutching heavily at the sides of his head, I was busier thinking about how much a younger Sheen looks like his sons (Charlie and Emilio Estevez) than his actual performance and Scott just mostly felt silly. They've also managed to waste Art Carney and Louise Fletcher in smaller roles.

Firestarter could have been much better. I'm questioning how it's possible for them to hire such a great B-movie director like Mark L. Lester (Class of 1984, Stunts) and not let him run with the idea of a little girl who can burn the shit out of whatever she wants. He does get in a few minor action scenes early on but soon the script by Stanley Mann settles down into a droning pace that's not helped at all by a terrible synth heavy score by Tangerine Dream, too many bonding scenes between John and Charlie, and just lots of uninteresting government suits babbling away. This is just too dry to mesh with Lester's action-heavy style, thank goodness he'd rebound in the best way possible a year later by delivering the over-the-top insanity that is Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando.

Running a bloated 114 minutes, Firestarter would've benefitted from hitting the sweet spot of around 90 minutes and not waiting until we're bored to tears before trotting out all the over-the-top explosions, stunt men flying violently through the air, and wanton destruction we've been waiting for. There's more exposition than actual action and Lester just seems to be going through the motions but what really scares me is that the (seemingly) unrelated made-for-TV sequel that followed eighteen years later would run a whopping 168 minutes! Then again, it's hard to believe that one of King's lesser efforts would actually produce two movies in the first place. (Chris Hartley, 6/1/14)

Directed By: Mark L. Lester.
Written By: Stanley Mann.

Starring: Drew Barrymore, David Keith, George C. Scott, Martin Sheen.