Firestarter

The acting is very stiff, the special effects look cheap… (the 1984 film) isn’t very well remembered, but somehow this manages to be worse.

Unfortunately, it didn't really catch fire...

The most incoherent, unengaging, and weirdly mean-spirited

The effects are dodgy and unconvincing. The emotional investment is nil. The running time is only 94 minutes long, thus proving there may, in fact, be a merciful higher power out there. It’s still a four-alarm disaster.

Maybe this book is unadaptable?

Only a thrilling throwback synth score from John Carpenter keeps this inferior, modernised take on Firestarter off the lower end of a list of Stephen King adaptations.

It's almost unbelievable that this new version could turn out so unwatchable.

Director Keith Thomas uses ominous music and moody lighting in an attempt to crank up the tension, but that fails entirely in the face of uniformly wooden performances, unconvincing special effects and a plot that fails to engage.

A premise with a lot of potential but like the original movie this one's pretty inept, thematically empty and dumbed down from the original source material.

Zac Efron looking so bored that blood drips from his eyes, dressing up King's 1980 story as a superhero tale and having its pyrokinetic protagonist say "liar liar, pants on fire" when she's torching someone aren't a recipe for igniting movie magic.