The Langoliers
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Langoliers |
| Original title | The Langoliers |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1995 |
| length | 180 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tom Holland |
| script | Tom Holland |
| production | David Kappes |
| music | Vladimir Horunzky |
| camera | Paul Maibaum |
| cut | Ned Bastille |
| occupation | |
| |
The Langoliers (alternative title: Stephen King's Langoliers - Verschollen im Zeitloch , Langoliers - The Other Dimension ) is a two-part science fiction thriller from 1995 based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King . King makes a brief appearance as a businessman in the film. The film deals with the idea that the world of the present, after it has become the past, will be destroyed. A group of air travelers accidentally land in this devastating moment and try to escape their fate.
action
Something strange happened on a night flight from Los Angeles to Boston . Passengers who fell asleep during the flight wake up to find that most of the passengers are absent. The people have disappeared, only objects that belonged to the person affected are left, including things from inside the people, such as fillings, pacemakers and artificial joints. With the help of the pilot Brian Engle, who happens to be on the plane and can fly it, the remainder land safely at Bangor airfield . There are only a few people on the plane, apart from Engle the businessman Craig Toomy, who is mentally very unstable and panics because he will miss an important business appointment, the blind girl Dinah Bellman, who is on her way to an eye operation and apparently that has psychic abilities, Nick Hopewell, who works for the British secret service, who is supposed to commit a contract murder in Boston, the music student Albert Kaussner, a young man who likes to daydream, the writer Bob Jenkins, who very quickly recognizes the first connections to this misfortune, Don Gaffney, who wants to visit his first granddaughter, also the teacher Laurel Stevenson, the drug addict Bethany Simms and Rudy Warwick, a good-natured guy who complains about his headaches after drinking too much alcohol. What they all have in common is that they slept during the flight.
The survivors quickly realize the situation. All radio frequencies are dead, the cities overflown, usually brightly lit at night, are pitch black. Other planes cannot be seen or reached - it gives the impression that the “normal” world no longer exists. The air has no smell and no taste; there is no wind and only very muffled, powerless noises. There is not a single soul to be found at the airport or in the airport buildings. Food and drinks have no taste. The entire environment seems somehow colorless and makes a worn-out impression.
Bob Jenkins is the first to recognize the connections: You must have got stuck in the past due to some kind of time hole, whereby when the time hole penetrated all the passengers who had not slept have disappeared because they live on in the present. The first assumption that something must have happened to the rest of the world was thus wrong - nothing happened to the world, only to the survivors of this flight. Jenkins suspects that they were only thrown a few minutes into the past - which is enough to make them seem irretrievably lost.
Craig Toomy starts going crazy and talks about monsters he calls "Langoliers". When he was a child, his father told him that if he was ever lazy and failed to do his chores, the Langoliers would come and devour him. Meanwhile, the blind girl Dinah hears crackling, eerie noises in the distance, which are rapidly approaching. Almost in panic, she advises the others to leave immediately because the "Langoliers" are coming. The survivors do everything in their power to refuel the plane and flee. Toomy, however, goes insane and attacks Dinah with a knife, seriously injuring her. Albert and Gaffney want to get a stretcher for Dinah, but Craig shows up and stabs Gaffney to death. Albert manages to knock Toomy unconscious. Nick wants to kill Toomy, but he listens to Dinah's request to let Toomy live, as he will still play an important role.
Shortly afterwards they see the "Langoliers" on the horizon for the first time, large, round creatures that only consist of a gigantic mouth with steel teeth and whose sole purpose of existence seems to be to eat. The survivors recognize what happens to the world when the present becomes the past: the "Langoliers" come and eat them - in the truest sense of the word. Buildings, cars, trees, runways - their feeding track is the black, absolute nothing.
Toomy comes to the airfield and imagines he can see the business people he's meeting with near the runway. Toomy confesses to the fictional businessmen that he has speculated on the expected money. Then suddenly he sees the Langoliers and tries to flee, but is pursued and eaten by them. That was what Dinah meant: his death gave the other survivors time to get on the plane. The survivors manage to start again at the very last second without Craig Toomy. Again in the air, the survivors fly in an empty sky, below them absolute nothing.
The flight computer was programmed so that the aircraft would return the same distance; the survivors hope to find the time hole in this way in order to be able to fly through again in the opposite direction and return to the world of the present. Dinah explains to Laurel that she has done her job and dies of her injury. The search succeeds, they find the time hole - a colorful structure in the sky, the black center of which promises a return. Bob explains that everyone has to sleep to get through the time hole. The others put themselves in a deep unconsciousness by means of negative pressure in the cabin so as not to be dissolved. Nick Hopewell sacrifices himself to steer the plane awake through the time hole. The flight through succeeds, Nick Hopewell disappears. All that remains of him is his watch.
But all efforts seem to have been in vain, because after landing, the survivors find that they have landed again in a dead world and appear to be the only living beings. But something is different: this world gives the impression of radiant presence. She looks fresh, as if she's waiting to be born. Again, it is Jenkins who realizes that this time they have been moved 15 minutes into the future - but a constant, increasing hum indicates that the present is just about to "latch onto" this future. And that's how it happens. The survivors are delighted to see how the first human shapes appear in the empty reception hall and manifest themselves into real people of flesh and blood.
Reviews
"After all, the film is technically solid and has surprisingly few logical breaks for a time travel variant, so that it offers viewers who can ignore stupid dialogues and clumsy actors a minimum of entertainment."
"One of the more successful Stephen King films of recent times: Despite the length and TV look, not a second boring."
“The two-part TV series based on a King's short story offers creepy moments and a weird guest appearance by the author, but it also has clear lengths. Conclusion: OK. The horror takes too much time. "
Awards
The sound editing was nominated in 1995 for an Emmy Award and in 1996 for the Cinema Audio Society Award . The film was nominated for the Saturn Award in 1996 for Best TV Film.
Others
- Stephen King makes a cameo as chairman of the businessmen hallucinated by Toomy.
- Most of the two parts were filmed at Bangor International Airport in Bangor, Maine , the hometown of Stephen King.
Web links
- The Langoliers in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Langoliers at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Comparison of the cut versions Kabel 1 from 12 - FSK 16 by Stephen Kings Langoliers - Lost in the time hole at Schnittberichte.com
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Langoliers. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ http://www.cinema.de/kino/filmarchiv/film/stephen-kings-langoliers-2,1301919,ApplicationMovie.html
- ↑ Excerpt from Entertainment Tonight . Retrieved July 29, 2016.