Stephen King might one of the most well known writers nowadays, and he usually has some kind of obsession with paranormal events, in this case affecting a young little girl and his father, who are trying to run away from some evil government forces that want to capture them to do experiments.

The story is great, the two main characters are well written and are easy to connect with. And during the first half of the movie it flowed well and all. But around the half of the movie, it stops and gets slower and somehow, more boring. It still keeps the interest during some tense moments but it goes down a lot from the great start. Drew Barrymore as the little girl, Charlie was fantastic and her performance really makes you care about what could happen to her or her dad, Andy, played by David Keith.

The visual effects, although they weren't perfect, were great for the not-so-high budget this movie had. The scenes with the young Drew Barrymore using her telekinetic powers were great and interesting to watch. And the atmosphere is created in part thanks to the great electronic score by Tangerine Dream.

I would recommend this movie to any Stephen King, as I'm sure they would enjoy it a lot.

I had quite high hopes for this cinema adaptation of Stephen King's bestseller. Alas, a weak plot defeats this film after the latter half begins. There are some fine actors in "Firestarter" but they are wasted with some poor material. I'm not surprised that Stephen King doesn't like this version of his book. Martin Sheen, George C. Scott and Freddie Jones make the most of what they have but it is all to no avail. Drew Barrymore is actually tolerable in the leading role. The last 40 minutes feel very restricted as the narrative simply crawls along at a snail's pace. Everything is centred around the secret house that is used by the American government and it didn't work in the film's favour. The climax offered some compensation to a certain extent and I was cheering on Drew Barrymore every time she used her special gifts. The running time could have been reduced by about 20 minutes as nearly two hours is too long.

the first half of the film is boring but the second half liked me a lot. Plus I liked seeing a very young Drew Barrymore. I liked the figure of my present father and even more, the bad figure, John Rainbird (George C.Scott), an actor already seen in the movie "Dr. Strangelove". The story is a bit banal in some places, but the scene of the farm is unforgettable.