FIRESTARTER

   Film (1984). Universal. Dir Mark L. Lester, starring David Keith, Drew Barrymore, Freddie Jones, Heather Locklear, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott. Screenplay Stanley Mann, based on Firestarter (1980) by Stephen KING. 114 mins. Colour.

   The novel is not one of King's best, but it hardly deserved this messy adaptation. A young girl, Charlie (Barrymore), has pyrotic powers and can start fires by mental concentration alone. Naturally, a CIA-like organization ("the Shop") wishes to exploit her powers as a newWEAPON, and just as naturally she incinerates them in a final (rather small) holocaust. Scott plays the evil Native-American assassin who wishes to absorb Charlie's powers. The film is pure CLICHE from beginning to end, and not very competent at that level. Far superior in the teenage PSI POWERS line is the very similar The FURY (1978) and, of course, CARRIE(1976), both dir Brian De Palma, and the latter also based on a King novel.

   PN