NOTE: This was part of my Stephen King Halloween special. I saved it to post when I did a special cover thing, but I got too stressed about getting the layout right, even though it was otherwise done. I post now for your approval, sans the special layout I did for the other Stephen King Movies. Or I think it was out of order, cause I needed to do Carrie first. I don’t know, this is three years late.
Tonight: The Langoliers (1995)
Well, this movie is a lot more straightforward than The Tommyknockers, but still just . . . odd.
Stephen King has many great stories, and at the same time, a bunch of weird ones. Sometimes they can be one in the same. This is not one of those times.
Oh, and this one is made by Tom Holland! Way to go Spider-man!
(Editor’s note: not the same Tom Holland)
So the basic plot of this movie is a plane full of passengers flies through a tear in the space time continuum. Those that were asleep wake up to find everyone else has disappeared. They land at an airport and find that no one is there either and everything has stopped. Matches won’t light. Beer doesn’t fizz. Sandwiches don’t . . .uh . . . sandwich? All the while they hear a noise in the distance. They figure out that they are behind in time. Like people who forget to change their watches during daylight savings time. After a while, giant cgi testicles with teeth show up and start chewing the scenery. If you thought Vagina’s with teeth were scary, after seeing these guys you will. . . still probably find vagina’s with teeth scarier.
They manage to get airborne again and fly back through the rip in space time. This time they end up slightly ahead in time, but time catches up. Apparently they are fine just to stand a little out of the way as they resync with reality. What about the giant plane? Won’t someone be concerned when a giant plane just suddenly appears? Or want to know where all the passengers went? Or the fact there is a dead body on board. There is a fan that is waiting to resync with the s*** that already hit it!
So the big thing about this movie is not so much the events, but the characters.
Two characters stand out more than anyone.
Dean Stockwell as Bob Jenkins and Balki as Craig Toomy.
Craig Toomy is just the most over the top ridiculous character in this movie.
Yeah, I believe you did.
Craig Toomy is flying to Boston for a VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESS MEETING AT 9 AM! He’s going to this meeting so he can flaunt in his Boss’ face that he lost the company $43 Million. As a result he is incredibly stressed.
Why?
If I unintentionally lost my company millions, then yes, I would be VERY stressed about making the meeting so I could talk my way out of it. However, since he INTENTIONALLY did it, I wouldn’t care. In fact I would love to be late to that meeting, just to throw one more “F*** You” onto the pile.
However, he apparently gets very unhinged when things go wrong. This is how crazy he looks when he thinks the plane made an unscheduled stop without waking him up.
Due to Toomy’s crazy antics, when they land, they decide to tie him up. He is the one that gives the movie its name. Apparently the Langoliers were something his dad made up. They are described as very fast little things that eat lazy children.
He leaves out the part of them looking like testicles with teeth. He ends up breaking free, stabbing the little girl and the token black guy.
The little girl gets the last laugh because she uses her shining-
I mean her psychic ability to make Toomy imagine he has arrived at his business meeting. And here we get one of my favorite Stephen King cameos so far.
Honestly, I think this is how he sees his agent every time his name gets slapped on something.
Toomy reveals that he lost the $43 Million deliberately in order to get out of the stocks business. He must have negotiated one HELL of a severance package.
Well, the little girl held this fake business meeting on the runway where the Langoliers finally show up and decide to eat Toomy. Not due to his laziness, but because nobody should chew the scenery more than them.
The other character of note is Bob Jenkins, played by Al from Quantum Leap.
He is a Sci-Fi Mystery writer. Bob prides himself on his powers of deduction. I would go so far as to say he is writing this story as it plays out. He doesn’t talk like a normal person. The entire movie he is postulating these obscure ideas which turn out to be correct. Or at least as much as they can be. Bob postulates that the Langoliers are there to eat the past, but that is no guarantee what they are, we just go on his say so.
Everyone else talks like a normal believable person, but Bob talks like a high minded sci-fi novel. Partly I think it is Stephen King’s critique of Sci-Fi writers.
The only other thing of note is watching airport security before 9/11. Honestly, during the initial airport scene, you can see security wanding someone down with a radio antenna.
Tomorrow: Keeping the weird train going, we are going to crank it up to 11.
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