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- ABC
- May 14, 1995
- ABC
- May 14, 1995
Summary In this TV mini-series based on the novella by Stephen King, a small group of passengers on an airliner wake up to discover that everyone else--passengers and crew--have vanished. When they manage to land the airliner, they discover that seemingly everyone in the world has vanished... and something is coming for them.
- ABC
- May 14, 1995
- ABC
- May 14, 1995
Summary In this TV mini-series based on the novella by Stephen King, a small group of passengers on an airliner wake up to discover that everyone else--passengers and crew--have vanished. When they manage to land the airliner, they discover that seemingly everyone in the world has vanished... and something is coming for them.
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Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
59
47% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
40% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
13% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
59
47% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
40% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
13% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
This self-referential approach works only because the premise is so convincing and the characters are so real. When the mumbo-jumbo kicks in, we're willing to overlook holes in the plot as frighteningly big as the langoliers themselves because we can walk in the characters' shoes. [14 May 1995, p.1C]
Writer-director Tom Holland has pulled off the viewer-friendliest Stephen King vid adaptation since the Tobe Hooper-Paul Monash "Salem's Lot," at least for the first three hours. Pulling flesh-and-blood characters out of King's stick figures aboard an airplane zooming into a twilight zone, Holland has turned The Langoliers into a TV grabber.
This makes The Langoliers slow going in spots, but it’s also a lot more fun than most TV movies...Pinchot turns in a wonderfully delirious performance as a grown-up abused child driven to succeed as a banker by memories of his cruel daddy. And even though the langoliers are pretty obviously computer-animated special effects, these little meatballs are still pretty scary. I’d rather watch them than a Susan Lucci TV movie any day.
The cast, on the whole, creates believable characters in an unbelievable situation. (Pinchot is the exception - too much of his comic persona leaks through and undermines the maniac he's trying to create.)
What really destroys "The Langoliers," though, is when the langoliers finally appear, looking and acting like a pack of crazed, oversize Pac-Men. Their evil intention is to literally chew the scenery, but Pinchot has already beaten them to it and the special effects are more laughable than terrifying, as if the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park," after all that buildup, had looked like big Barneys. Until that point, "The Langoliers" is fun but that's not quite enough. If you're curious, though, catch it now, because it's a safe bet this miniseries won't ever be an in-flight movie. [12 May 1995]
For a scary movie, this is incredibly banal. In fact, the events surrounding fateful Flight 29 are a crashing bore.
So here's your "Langoliers" viewing experience -- you spend hours in the company of cardboard characters, under the doughy direction of Tom Holland, waiting for something scary to happen, and at long last your payoff is a couple of minutes of cheesy special effects. Anyone's idea of a good time?
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