Part 2

    Vincent pulls a gun on Cody while he holds on to Charlie. Rainbird walks in and he wants to trade the boy for Charlie. John agrees, but isn't worried. Gil comes up behind him and knocks him out. Charlie leaves Vincent and escapes.
    Joel yells at Gil telling him he screwed up getting Charlie, but to get out there and find Richardson. He is checking the damage Charlie caused the project and is considered. He wants to get Charlie because Rainbird said to, but Joel reminds him that he is his boss, not Rainbird.
    Charlie runs into herself when she is little and tells her she broke her promise and must go back. Grown up Charlie doesn't want to, but young Charlie tells her she shouldn't break her promises. Then a guard in a bus station wakes her up telling her she can't sleep there. She isn't living there, but is getting on a bus to Phoenix in 20 minutes. The guard leaves and a voice tells her she is thinking about going back for Vincent. She thinks she is losing it for a second, then realizes the voice isn't in her head, but behind her. It is Richardson, he has finally come for her.
    He tells her he can see the past, present and future all at once. She wants to know how he found her and he said he was waiting for her there because it is where they meet. She thinks he is crazy. He tells her they must go back to Vincent, but she isn't going. He tells her she may say that, but that isn't what she'll do. In one minute the agents will be there and she can wait. She doesn't.
    They head off in his car and he explains that she goes to rescue Vincent and he dies. She can't believe that he really knows these things, but he does. He never lies.
    Vincent is strapped down at System Operations in the room with all the kids. The doctor kid wants to cut him open, but John stops him. He wants to know everything about Charlie. Vincent doesn't understand because John already knows everything about her. He wants to know what she smells like and what she does when you tickle her back. He missed her growing up. Vincent is weirded out and won't talk so the doctor kid jams a huge needle into his bullet wound and he howls. He has the mind control kid make him feel like his eyes are on fire. Vincent talks, but doesn't have much to tell. He doesn't know where Charlie is going or if she has anywhere to go, but if he did he would tell him. John believes him. Vincent wants to know how long this has been going on. He tells him Charlie was a product of Lot 6 and this latest batch is Lot 23. He also explains that after Charlie's unpredictable nature he will only work with boys.
    Charlie finally arrives looking for Rainbird and tries to get past the guard, but the guard tells him there is no Rainbird there. So she sets a big tree in the lobby on fire and the guard freaks. She sneaks by and gets in the building. The fire has activated the alarm and the sprinkler system. Every hallway is filling up with water and Charlie is getting soaked. She is searching for Vincent, but Rainbird is ahead of her. He locks him up in a cell and hides in there with him. When she melts the lock off, Vincent runs to her and John grabs him. Cody want to go see Charlie after the blind kid tells him she is there. Paul, the mind control kid, is the oldest and wants to be the boss, but is powerless to stop Cody. He leaves with three of the other kids.
    Rainbird wants to trade Vincent for her. She agrees, but he knows better. Vincent elbows Rainbird and runs off. They round a corner and the kids are there waiting for her, but they do nothing to stop them. John tries to catch up with them, but they work their way out of the building, through the fake town and out the door to Richardson's waiting car.
    Mary is going to be autopsied, but she isn't really dead yet. She is screaming in her mind, but can't scream out loud. The doctor is going to cut her brain open and she stops the drill with her mind, but he gets it running again and goes to put it to her head when she screams out. They put her in the hospital and she has the FBI come in after she tells about how Sys Op tried to murder her. They don't believe her until she screws with all the power in the room.
    John isn't happy with the kids and won't tell them any more stories because they let him down when they let Charlie go. Gil comes in while he is explaining this and he tells Gil he can help them with his lesson. Since Gil has failed him twice he needs to be disciplined. When the group leaves the room, Gil is dead.
    Vincent, Charlie and Richardson stop at some hole-in-the-wall diner somewhere and Charlie tells him Vincent should leave them, but he can't now. She wants to know what Rainbird wanted and he says everything. He wants to know intimate details about her and he seems obsessed. He said he talks like he was her father. She isn't happy he said that because he isn't her father. He knows that though. She tells him he loves her. He tells her that his sick vision isn't love. She asks him why he doesn't go to the hospital to see his father. "It hurts," he tells her. "That's right, love hurts," she explains.
    He goes inside and gets a hold of his brother and he is OK. He wants to go to the hospital that night and see his father. His borther tells him not to say that unless he means it. After that he'll run to Canada with Charlie so he won't put his family in danger. Plus the snow there can keep the fire in check.
    The FBI finds out that there really is a Rainbird, Gil James and Sys Op and bring Mary with them to investigate. Joel thinks Rainbird has screwed up the project by letting Charlie escape. He tells him that it won't matter, even if the feds do show up, which they do soon after. He meets with them and tries to convince them that nothing is going on. They don't really buy it and want to see Gil and John signals the kids. He takes them to Gil who is now on ice. They move to arrest John, but it is too late - the kids have arrived. They make them put their guns away and control them.
    Rainbird is escorting the men out having fully convinced them there is nothing there. Mary wants to know what is taking so long and the third agent tells her not to worry. Then she sees them and tells him that is Rainbird. The other two agents say that there is nothing there, just a factory that makes titanium bindings for skis. Mary freaks out and grabs the third agents gun and goes after Rainbird put the two agents fire on her and kill her before she can harm anyone.
    Richardson takes them to a town and hey get out. Charlie recognizes the town - it is the same exact to as the fake town at Sys Op. Before they know it Rainbird is there and all the kids are playing in a nearby park. Charlie is shocked and saddened that Richardson sold them out. He tells he that Rainbird got to him first. He was going to torture him, but Richardson agreed to bring to Charlie to him not because he wanted it, but because that was what had to happen. Charlie still can't believe he would do this to her after she trusted him and lied about everything. He tells her that he didn't lie about anything and was exactly who he said he was. He tells Rainbird he will never see him again and drives off. Vincent and Charlie try to leave, but then notice the kids are everywhere. Vincent sees that there are cameras all around and track them to Joel's command center where they overhear the plan to take out the bank. The project is about to begin with the kids demonstrating their powers to rob the bank. Rainbird has other plans. Vincent tries to do something and tells a cop that kids are going to take down the back and of course think he is nuts.
    Night begins to fall and Charlie realizes that they are waiting for her to act. She confronts John and he tells her that he will kill the whole town and it is up to her to stop him. She isn't interested and walks away. Joel is freaking out that Rainbird allowed Charlie to come there and that the project was ruined. He tells Joel that she is the most important thing. Vincent can't believe Charlie is running and goes off to confront the kids. He grabs the banshee kid and he screams, sending a shockwave that blows up the front of the bank. Chaos ensues and people are running everywhere. Rainbird gets up and we see that he has finished off Joel.
    All the other kids are using their powers to make more chaos. One flips cars, another throws things through buildings, Paul makes people think they are blind and Cody sucks the life out of people. Soon enough Vincent is surrounded and about to be forced to cut his own throat with a piece of glass. Just then Charlie returns and they stop. She tells them John is using them for evil like he did with her, but they don't believe her, except for the blind kid who knows the truth. While she is talking, Rainbird jumps up and grabs Vincent. John threatens to kill Vincent if she won't show him what she is made of. She won't. Since she won't do it, he must force her. He stabs Vincent and leaves him. He dies soon after. She loses control and starts launching fireballs at everything blowing up most of the town. All the kids leave except for Cody. She confronts Rainbird asking if he wants god to forgive him. "no, only to pass judgment," he tells her. She grabs him and begins to kiss him hard, passing the fire to him internally. Soon he is burning and explodes, leaving only a skeleton that turns to dust. Meanwhile Cody is sucking in all the fire from the buildings and wants her to give him her worst. She grabs him and fully unleashes on him and there is a massive explosion and he drops to the ground.
    Soon after Charlie goes to the hospital to see Vincent's father. His brother is with him when she arrives. She tells him that Vincent was coming to see him, but didn't make it. She also tells him to be proud of him and turns to leave. The father asks how she knew him and he tells him that he helped her a lot and taught her to trust again.
    Then we see her getting on a bus to somewhere and the kids from the project are sitting in their room at Sys Op wondering what to do and Cody is with them. The bus pulls away. The End.

My Review

    I've never seen so much hype for anything Malcolm has ever been in. In fact this is the most promotion I've ever seen on a TV movie. If you didn't know this series was coming you had to have been living in a vacuum for the last couple of weeks. While they focused heavily on Charlie, Malcolm did get top billing and was very prominent in a handful of trailers and had his own TV spot.
    I was certainly looking forward to it because it looked like a large role for Malcolm and a very sick role as well. Not only was half his face badly burned, he was painted as a really sick old man with his obsession with Charlie. He certainly didn't disappoint. If you are familiar with the villain Two-Face from Batman, this will give you an idea of how he looked. The right side of his face is basically normal and the left side is badly burned, looking a bit by Freddy Krueger. His hands and legs are also burned, but are never shown. We can tell because he always wears heavy gloves, holds one arm up and walks with a limp. He plays the character evilly, but very laid back. Because of his wounds, he can't move fast or be very violent himself. He does kill two men, but is with very fast jabs with a pipe to a neck. He prefers to let his new batch of Children - Lot 23 do the dirty work. One of my favorite scenes is after Charlie escapes from Sys Op. He is sitting in the room with the children and they ask him to tell a story and it doesn't have to be about Charlie and he replies, "nope" all hurt. There are also a couple scenes of him as a younger Rainbird with his hair dyed all black which answers the question of what he would look like if his hair wasn't white in real life. Very different, much younger. It was interesting that they had these scenes because Malcolm wasn't in the original Firestarter film. So instead of using clips from it, which they probably weren't allowed to anyway, they recreated them using him. Another great scene is when he is going through Charlie's stuff and smelling her clothes, his eyes roll back,  and he is asking Vincent crazy questions like, "Does she still roll over when you tickle her back?" Right before the final showdown he narrates a long poem, like in the 4th trailer, which was excellent.
    Dennis Hoppers' role was a bit disappointing. He was hyped as going head-to-head with Rainbird, but wasn't even in the first part of the film. They only have one big scene together and that was in a flashback. Rainbird didn't even get to torture him because Richardson agrees to go along with him. Their second scene is just when he leaves Charlie in the town. His role is also very laid back. He knows the future so he is just forced to go along with it and shows no emotion and doesn't raise his voice. He is almost robotic.
    Marguerite was made out to be almost a porno star. I tried to ask her about that during the chat on scifi.com, but they wouldn't let that one go through. I wonder what she thought about it all. She might've been flattered, but is makes her into more of a sex symbol, instead of an actress. The endless showing of the trailers that played on her sexuality and having the camera go close up every inch of her body got really old, really fast. I suppose that was because they were trying to attract the sci-fi fanboy crowd that watches the channel.  She did a good job during the film and if you are into her, you got to see a lot of her. During the first sex scene in the parking lot, clothes are flying off and she unzips the guy and jumps on top of him down to only a sports bra and mini skirt. This is the first ridiculous scene. It is basically the same story as Cat People. In that film when they have sex, they turn into cats. In Firestarter if she has sex she sets fire to everything around her. Knowing that information, why would she do it? The risk is incredible including killing her partner and burning everything else. She goes from a packed club, to an empty parking lot then an abandoned alley right outside and everything blows up and burns, but no one is there? No one gets hurt!? Give me a break, there would have been lots of people hurt just so she could get a cheap thrill and not even finish? Or are they saying her unleashing all that fire is her orgasm? The other scene that doesn't make sense is when she sets fire to the tree in the lobby the sprinkler system in the entire complex goes off, water is everywhere. This is unnecessary and led me to believe the only reason was to show Charlie all wet.
    The other project kids acted well, none seemed unrealistic. A bit more explanation of their powers could've helped a bit though. Two kids seemed to have the same power to move objects, but did they? Rainbird could've introduced them one by one in  a quick scene.
    Danny did OK as Vincent, but seemed a bit too goody goody. He looks like a young Robert Downey Jr. He is supposed to be a smart agent, but is blissfully unaware what is going on? A bit unrealistic. The worst part is when Paul makes him shot himself in the foot. There is no blood, his shoe remains intact and he is able to just limp around for the rest of the film. He receives no medial treatment, doesn't wrap it and in fact when he is tortured the kid exacerbates the wound, which is on his ankle and on the wrong foot!? He should have bled to death. The good thing is that he does die just like Richardson said he would. At least they didn't sugar coat the final showdown.
    Overall it is a likeable film that holds your interest. It isn't groundbreaking, but it isn't poorly done either. It is weird how they made everyone seem so laid back with only Charlie unleashing her anger at the end. I am also not sure what angle they were going for with Rainbird's desire to make god and pass judgment on him. Maybe because he came back from the dead once that he thought he was immortal? It also seemed like the made it a bit too X-File-ish with the secret group, kids with powers and even Joel looked a lot like Skinner, the agents boos and he had to answer to a mystery figure like the Cancer Man (Rainbird). They also left it wide open at the end since none of the kids from the project died. Firestarter 3 could show them hunting Charlie bent on revenge.  I don't know how they expect to turn a profit with all the money the spent on it, but maybe the are counting on DVD sales. I hope the DVD has some good extras, behind the scenes, making of, interviews, outtakes, etc.

Rating 7/10

Trailers

Each trailer adds the footage from the previous trailer.

1st  - Teaser
The first one is quite short and tries to be mysterious. It shows Marguerite in a studio with lines on the screen. 
"What is the hottest new miniseries coming to television?" 
Then Charlie taping her fingers on her waist.
"You're getting warmer."
Charlie puts her hands on her hips.
"Warmer."
Camera closes in Charlie's face.
"Really Hot."
Then the Firestarter Logo.

2nd - Getting Warmer - full
The second trailer finally shows footage from the movie. It starts out exactly the same as the first one then shows clips with no dialogue. Clips are Charlie in the street turning her head, fireball hits a building, with a man trapped in side, Charlie close-up with billowing hair staring possessed, Rainbird with the burned face laughing, Richardson talking to Rainbird who is seen from the back, Charlie holding a child amidst a firestorm then the date it starts.

3rd  - Porno - full
I don't know what happened, but now they make the movie look like a softcore porno film. They have a jazzy porno type music play and show show close-ups of Marguerite's body. The female announcer talks while they show this. 
The camera travels up her feet where she has knee high leather boots with high heels rubbing up against each other.
"Her perfect man?"
The camera goes shows her hand running down her thigh where she is wearing a short leather mini skirt.
"Tall..."
Then shows her hand running up her midsection over her breasts where she is wearing a tight leather jacket which zips up the front and looks like there is nothing underneath.
"Dark..."
Then her hand runs up the back and side of her neck while her head hangs back with her eyes closed.
"Fireproof."
Then her eyes open and it goes to the clips in the 2nd trailer. After the Richardson clip the new clips start. It shows Charlie almost having sex near the hood of a car. Her dress is riding way up her butt and the guy is holding her in the air and her legs are wrapped around him. He is kissing her neck and her head throws way back. Then Charlie against a wall pummeled by wind, a fireball hitting a building and Charlie rising up from the street. What happened to the sci-fi aspect of the film? Long gone. They play to much on instead of hot and fire, that hot means sex.

4th - Fire and Ice - full 30 seconds
This is the best one as it just shows Rainbird, who is on a set and doesn't look like he does in the clip from the film. He looks less burned and it seems like it was done later. He says only one line, which plays over new clips then it goes to the 3rd trailer with the inserted sex scene. It is a new Malcolm classic, 
"Some say the world will end in fire, others in ice. From what I've tasted in desire, I hold with those who favor fire."
It starts out with a dark clip of Charlie walking down the street with fire in the background and an evil close-up. Then Rainbird speaks the lines, a black man shooting a gun in a fire, a fireball hitting him, Rainbird making out with Charlie and she looks into it, Charlie looks over and a bus stop blows up and Rainbird finishing his lines. Then to the 3rd trailer clips.
At the end the announcer says, "Firestarter Rekindled, a Sci-Fi original miniseries event based on the novel by Stephen Ling. Premiere on March 10th at 9 PM, only on Sci-Fi. Brought to you in part by Volkswagon."

Note: Alternate sponsored by messages include Verizon, Bailey, Jeep and others

Note: Malcolm's line is from 'Fire and Ice' by Robert Frost.

The entire text of the poems is:
Some say the world will end in fire, other say in ice. 
From what I have tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. 
But, from what I know of hate, I think that ice is also great and would suffice.

5th  - What are you made of?
Shots of Charlie with Rainbird talking over it, questioning her, pushing her.

6th   - Contest
Repeats the porno trailer intro (no clips) then goes into a Hawaiian volcano "The Hottest place on Earth" vacation contest info spot.

7th - Montage - short
Short montage of new shots including Rainbird inside a room. The female narrator says "Dennis Hopper, Malcolm McDowell and Marguerite Moreau in Firestarter." While the clips play.

8th - Oven mitts
Close up of Charlie from the 1st trailer and female announcer speaking over it.
"How do you handle a girl this hot? Oven mitts."

9th - Power
Charlie walking on a CGI set and Rainbird talking the whole time with half the lines from the 5th one. She clenches her fists and the ground beneath her starts to crack open.

10th - Mind
She lights fires with her mind.

11th - Preview
This came after Part 1 with clips from Part 2.

Other channels
Get the 2nd trailer and at the end 'check your local listings' on Sci-Fi. Has been seen on TNT and E!
Later they had the 4th trailer which was the same until the very end where a scene with Richardson driving Charlie in a car was added.

TV Spot 1
This shows only Malcolm who looks the same as he does in the 4th trailer and says, "The fire starts in 10 days time." Of course every day the number gets lower. From the ninth day on he changed it to, "The fire starts in x days."

TV Spot 2
This is just like the one with Malcolm, but features Dennis Hopper on a street corner saying, "The fire starts in xx days."

TV Spot 3
This is just like the others, but has Marguerite saying, "The fires starts in x days."

Random
On the bottom right corner of the screen the Firestarter: Rekindled logo appears then a fireball covers it and the words "ignites in xx days" appear.

Radio Spot
Sci-Fi is even advertising on the radio. I have heard it on the Howard Stern show. He says he loved the original, but only saw it once. "20 years later they've got the Firestarter all hot, hotter than Drew Barrymore." They are allowed to pretty much say what they want and he was saying how the girl was even hotter than girls in X-rated films. 

Pictures © 2001 Sci-Fi Channel
Everything else © 2001-08 Alex D. Thrawn for www.MalcolmMcDowell.net