Les Langoliers

By sheer coincidence, I had JUST finished reading "The

Langoliers" when I saw that it would be on USA the next two

nights. So I said to myself, "Self...why don't you watch it and see

how it compares?" As an adaptation, this movie is just about as faithful as you can

get. Some minor changes were made for time (for example, an

entire character was dropped from the plane...he didn't do much or

contribute ANYTHING to the plot, he just slept the whole time), but

all in all, it was pretty much like an abridged audiobook with visual

images. Virtually nothing was changed in the transfer from page

to screen. As a result, the weaknesses in the movie mostly stem from

weaknesses in the book. I really like Stephen King's style, though

I haven't read very much by him. The most interesting thing about

the story is the horror of the unknown, and each character's

different reactions to it...hysteria, anger, disbelief, etc. My problem

with the story (and the movie as well) is that the Langoliers are a

bit of a letdown. Visually, they looked like computer-generated

images, not like real monsters. But even in the story, their

presence seems unnecessary. The most frightening parts of the

story are when the passengers of Flight 29 have no clue what's

going on. Wouldn't the Langoliers have been more interesting if

we never saw them, but knew they were there...i.e., seeing the

disappearance of the world, hearing the sound of the Langoliers,

but never seeing them...possibly a brief glimpse as the plane

takes off or as one of the characters gets eaten. Acting wise, the movie was a mixed bag. Some people really got

into their roles. I though Bronson Pinchot was great as Craig

Toomey, and I also think he's pretty underrated as an actor since

he was Balki in Perfect Strangers. Other people, I thought were a

little flat. I've never been too fond of David Morse (the pilot), and as

much as I like Dean Stockwell (Al from Quantum Leap, whoo-hoo),

he didn't seem to fit the role of the mystery writer Bob Jenkins. The special effects were pretty miserable. It all looked like pretty

low-tech computer effects - the plane, the Langoliers, the time rip.

Not too impressive. But hey - TV movie, what do you expect? Overall, this is an excellent adaptation of a pretty good story. Some

changes should have been made in the transfer, but that's my

opinion.

There is no doubt that in this version of "The Langoliers", despite being a very serious Stephen King novella, the material is quite cheeseball and (at times) very over-dramatic. Yet, at the same time, the brilliance of King's story still manages to shine through thanks to some great acting and the direction of Tom Holland.

For a basic plot summary (no spoilers), a small group of airplane passengers wake up and find the rest of the plane deserted. As they struggle to land the plane and figure out what is going on, they discover that the answer is beyond anything that has ever been seen or experienced before.

First off, it would take a great sight more than a bit of 90s cheesy-ness to detract from King's wonderful tale. This is a wide-ranging story (from drama to sci-fi to characters to fantasy) that has something for everyone. Most of King's writing shines through in this adaptation.

The acting, however, is what really drives this three-hour film. Great actors such as Patricia Wettig, Dean Stockwell, David Morse, Mark Lindsay Chapman, and Bronson Pinochet (among others) all provide new wrinkles to the overall storyline by portraying such a diverse cast. Is the acting over-the-top? You bet. But due to the diversity of the characters and their development, the craziness actually didn't bother me all that much. Perhaps this is because I "knew what was coming" having already read the story, though.

Overall, having prior knowledge of the story, I enjoyed this take on "The Langoliers". While I would still recommend King's written work to get the full extent of the tale, this one will suffice for those who won't pick up a book.

A passenger plane takes off from Los Angeles and flies into disaster as a group of sleeping passengers awaken to discover that the other passengers have mysteriously vanished.

This made-for-TV movie was based on a Stephen King novella and was originally shown as a two-part miniseries on network television back in the mid 90s. The acting is about what you'd expect from a TV movie, the dialogue is slightly corny at times, and the special effects aren't great, to say the least.

However, I thought the Langoliers succeeded in doing something that you rarely see in horror films in that it successfully took that slow-building feeling of fear and dread that you get when you read a scary novel and transferred it to the screen. Generally speaking, horror movies these days tend to rely on shocks and scares, but the Langoliers is a slow-paced mystery thriller, kind of like a really creepy Twilight Zone episode, where our heroes spend much of their time trying to piece together the clues in order to solve the mystery of their predicament, all while an ominous feeling of oncoming danger just grows and grows. Overall, I thought it was pretty good. 7/10

As many have noted, the acting is mostly horrible, but the dialog was far worse, and I can't bring myself to think the actors weren't cringing inside while filming.

By far the most annoying and destructive aspect of the script is the huge number of scenes where the plot would seem to dictate great screaming urgency but the characters waste time with blank stares or senseless pauses. Any writer who thinks those devices work to heighten suspense needs to go back to school, preferably the 5th grade. It's enough to make you root for the bad guys, er, bad things.

That said, the story was incredibly engrossing -- sufficiently so that we kept the disc running with only one pause in the whole 3 hours. I'm still not sure if that was smart or stupid. I'd like to be able to vote both 2 and 9 simultaneously.

I have to say I enjoyed this film a lot. I hadn't heard of it before but I found the film interesting. This film provides an interesting take on time travel not depicted in other time travel movies.

To be perfectly honest I did not see this as a scare film. It was not remotely frightening to me, but that did not prove to be a negative part to it. The story is brilliantly told, and the sfx weren't that bad. It was clearly an unreal format of effects, but this added to the unique structure.

Overall I enjoyed the Langoliers, a story of mystery and adventure crammed with plot twists.