This is not a terrible made-for-TV film. The acting is either wooden (Patricia Wetting, David Morse, Kimber Riddle) or way over-the-top (Dean Stockwell, Bronson Pinchot, Kate Maberly). The writing is ridiculously stilted -- for example, it's amazing how often the "..and soon" or "..and fast" phrase is used in the script, as in "we have to get out of here, and soon." I suspect that the dialogue is taken almost word-for-word from King's story, and that would explain it, and how. King is a fine storyteller but a spectacularly bad writer who has yet to master dialogue.
None of this is really a problem, however. These are the characteristics of the standard Sci-Fi channel film, and you shouldn't expect more. The problem is that the film is really quite stupid.
Think about it; the Langoliers come from the east, but they devour the airport in such a way as to leave it as a chunk of rock like in a Roger Dean album cover. How did they do that? Dinah spends a lot of time dieing, but no one thinks of wiping the blood on her mouth, which never congeals. If all time is stopped, why does the bullet from Twomey's gun fire at all? Surely the crew would have known something was up when they originally saw the aurora borealis, which occurs at 150,000 feet, not in a jetliner's flightpath... And the list goes on.
It's a fun time-killer if you're willing to suspend your disbelief to extent necessary and you can stomach the usual Sci-Fi channel nonsense. But this is not great art. In fact, it's not art at all. Of course, neither are Steven King's novels.
None of this is really a problem, however. These are the characteristics of the standard Sci-Fi channel film, and you shouldn't expect more. The problem is that the film is really quite stupid.
Think about it; the Langoliers come from the east, but they devour the airport in such a way as to leave it as a chunk of rock like in a Roger Dean album cover. How did they do that? Dinah spends a lot of time dieing, but no one thinks of wiping the blood on her mouth, which never congeals. If all time is stopped, why does the bullet from Twomey's gun fire at all? Surely the crew would have known something was up when they originally saw the aurora borealis, which occurs at 150,000 feet, not in a jetliner's flightpath... And the list goes on.
It's a fun time-killer if you're willing to suspend your disbelief to extent necessary and you can stomach the usual Sci-Fi channel nonsense. But this is not great art. In fact, it's not art at all. Of course, neither are Steven King's novels.
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