Strangers on a Plane
When a young blind girl screams when she wakes up on a plane and her aunt is missing it wakes up the rest of the plane or at least those who remain as somehow only 10 people are on the plane and all that is left of the others are their watches, jewellery and surgical pins. Whilst 9 out of 10 of these people try to make sense of their situation, one of them, Craig Toomy (Bronson Pinchot), causes them problems with his irrational behaviour. When they land, thanks to pilot Brian Engle (David Morse) who was dead heading on the flight they find the weirdness continues down on Earth as their is no one left. Meanwhile Toomy is becoming even more irrational as he is struggling with the voice of his father in his head telling him the Langoliers are coming.
If I say "The Langoliers" is a curious mini-series that could be a compliment because as a mystery movie it should make you curious. From the initial WTF moment as these strangers on a plane discover that they seem to have been left behind when they discover others have gone to why when they land is there no sound, no echo, air is odourless and bullets have no force it certainly grabs your attention. And as the movie plays out and we have the slow reveal of what is going on and who these people are it does a good job of drawing you in to this curious set up.
But like a coin there is a flip side to "The Langoliers" and as a mini series we are talking 180 minutes when you remove the adverts and sadly whilst the pacing contributes to a sense of mystery it does make it drag in places as director Tom Holland seems to get lost with subplots. Then there is the acting and sadly "The Langoliers" features for me some over the top acting from Bronson Pinchot responding to everything in an over the top psychotic manner to Dean Stockwell coming across like a 1950s writer who has suffered a Quantum Leap in to the present where his verbose mystery solving is comical but bad. Sadly it goes on with Mark Lindsay Chapman also delivering over the top with his forceful manner.
As for how "The Langoliers" plays out well creative is the way to describe it with parts which even for sci-fi are far fetched. But there is another issue with this movie as the curse of the cheesy dialogue starts spreading with many a character ending up tossing out ridiculous dialogue including this ridiculous line "It's like a bunch of coked-up termites in a balsa wood glider".
What this all boils down to is that "The Langoliers" initially grabs your attention as it is mysterious and curious but unfortunately it then becomes almost comical the longer it goes on with dialogue which is just ridiculous and revelations which go too far.
