“Tough luck, Charlie! This is who you are!” – Zac Efron’s Andy parenting his telekinetically gifted daughter Charlie in “Firestarter.”
If there’s nostalgia for the 1984 edition of “Firestarter,” my guess it’s held by those who haven’t seen the movie in a long time. Because it’s awful, from the clumsily staged action sequences to the medley of scenes in which David Keith’s character exercises mind control by pressing his hands against his temples to the close-ups of little Drew Barrymore clenching her fists as she sets people on fire to an unfortunately miscast George C. Scott as a Native American named John Rainbird who is an assassin for a mysterious government agency known as The Shop. “The most astonishing thing about the movie … is how boring it is,” wrote Roger Ebert.
