The Langoliers

The Langoliers is a rather bumpy flight for Stephen King, so keep the sick bags ready along with the popcorn. But this new miniseries puts an intriguing spin on that most timeworn of sci-fi plots, time travel - as long as you can stomach character cliches that approach parody, not to mention a grand finale of flying creepies who look like hybrids between Pac-Man and the scrubbing bubbles of Dow Bathroom Cleaner. [13 May 1995, p.21]

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]

The two-part film is dotted with clever tensions and neat touches, not least a drinks trolley eerily rolling down the aisle of the near-empty plane. But the inflated story goes fairly predictable in a hurry, and the underlining is heavyhanded.

This latest King project, though king-size in running time, is considerably less King-ly in terms of its TV content. Indeed, the whole oversize romp winds up an exercise in the overlong, a tale lacking cohesion and solidity, coming across as an overblown "Twilight Zone" robbed of focused staying power. In its video guise, "The Langoliers" is a bloated exercise in "boo" closer to a whimper than full-blast fright show. [10 May 1995]