Stephen King, on the overwhelming evidence of the movie adaptations, can seldom be bothered to develop one of his ideas, but then the ideas are seldom worth developing in the first place. The idea here -- the terrible burdensomeness of supernatural powers on their possessor -- is pretty much the same idea as in The Dead Zone and, in germ form, in Carrie and The Shining; and its relative appealingness, along with its recurrence, may indicate deeper emotional roots than some of King's others. Indeed the present movie might well make more sense -- it could hardly make any less sense -- if it were looked at as a therapeutic enactment of the author's own creative dilemma. Thus, the little heroine's so-called pyrokinesis, nurtured initially for such private gratifications as toasting bread at the kitchen table, but soon sought after by an army of gray-flannel government agents bent on harnessing it for their own ends, might be seen as King's personal metaphor for his prolific literary gifts and the increasing market demands upon them. On a literal level, however, so few pains have been taken to put the exposition into a comprehensible order that the story never really gets a grip. George C. Scott as an Indian assassin with a gray ponytail and a marled eye comes along somewhat tardily to inject some robust villainy, and the ending, if you can remain awake for it, does not disappoint: Goodness gracious! Great balls of fire! Even this display, however, is a far cry from what the girl's pyrokinetic powers, connected as they are to the pituitary gland, are projected to be capable of when she reaches adolescence: nuclear explosion, global fission, Armageddon. Metaphorical translation: The Great American Novel, perhaps, or at least a bigger, better, hotter sequel. With Drew Barrymore, David Keith, and Martin Sheen; directed by Mark L. Lester. (1984) — Duncan Shepherd
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