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The Tommyknockers

The Tommyknockers

List Price: $9.98
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too different from the book to be good
Review: The Tommyknockers is a good, scary read. As a movie, though, the only things keeping it from total failure are Jimmy Smits and Marg Helgenberger. I've seen Smits in some very poor movies, but he seems to manage a good to great performance regardless.

The main difference between the book and the film is that in the book the ship was causing the townsfolk to mutate into the species that designed the ship, which explains the loss of teeth, etc. The movie doesn't make much sense, even if you've read the book.

There are several screen adaptations of King's work that are better than this. I really enjoyed Firestarter and Pet Sematary and they stayed fairly close to the book. The same is true for The Dead Zone, which also has IMO the best performance ever by Christoper Walken. Carrie is also a very good movie, The Shining was good, and Salem's Lot is a pretty good "stab" at traditional horror in the form of vampires. Of course, Green Mile, The Stand, and Shawshank Redemtion are great movies, too.

There are more bad movies from King's books than there are good ones, though. Both incarnations of his short story "Trucks" are bombs. Maximum Overdrive was hilariously bad, with a Emilio Estevez that is way over the top. It was remade as Trucks in 1998 and it was at least as bad as the original. The concept of inanimate objects somehow gaining intelligence is a bit silly except as a short story. By the time you realize how silly the idea is, you've finished reading. Sometimes They Come Back is poor, It was okay, the Langoliers and Sleepwalkers were so bad they made me laugh, Creepshow was pretty good in spite of being cartoonish, Thinner was okay (but Kari Wuhrer was underutilized).

I'd love it if they could make a good movie from the Dark Tower series or Insomnia.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Disappointed
Review: THE TOMMYKNOCKERS sounded like a fairly good movie from what I had heard. But one night, I decided to rent it with my relatives and it was close to being the worst show based on a novel from Stephen King. Some scenes are pointless, acting is bad in parts and more than half of it was just the stupid light that kept transforming people to evil. I was very disappointed in this movie. Most likely the only badly-crafted Stephen King movie there is!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Why?
Review: There's a hilarious article archived in "The Onion" about Steven King claiming he was drunk when he wrote "The Tommyknockers." All joking aside, the book was regarded as one of his worst. Putting Jimmy Smits in a movie version isn't going to set things right. If you are dying for a good King adaptation, why not revisit Cujo or The Shining, or even the new remake of Salem's Lot? Let's just push this one back under the bed and forget it's there...

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Absolute Garbage; Not Worth Watching
Review: This is by far the worst movie adaptation of a Stephen King book. Large chunks of the plot were cut out. The movie is chock-full of TV/movie clichés. The acting throughout is cheesy; one expression would be that the actors are chewing the scenery. The ending is changed around completely - in the book, the good guys don't win, and there is an appropriate apocalyptic resolution to the story; in the movie, the plot changes course for no apparent reason and the ending makes absolutely no sense. Don't even bother renting the movie unless you can't read. The book is a lot better and it will scare the **** out of you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: the worst movie
Review: this movie was the worst i have ever seen if any of you would like to see i sugest you don't spend your money on this film... just take it from me it is the worst movie you can ever rent the bood was better

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The worst adaptation of a King story ever!
Review: This was the worst King movie I have ever seen! I watched the first part of the 2-part movie on television, was intrigued, didn't get to see the second part, so I read the book. After finally seeing the second part, I am SO glad I read the book because the second part of the t.v. movie was really horrible. If you are interested in The Tommyknockers, do yourself a favor and read the book!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Reasonably faithful to the book until the disappointing end
Review: When a book is made into a movie, there is no requirement that it follow the plot set out in the print version, but if significant changes are made, these need to seem justified. In this case, the TV miniseries production strayed from the book in ways that were justifiable for most of its (considerable) length. Some of the subplots and characters just would not have translated well to the screen version. But the ending of the story is almost completely different from that set out in King's novel, and is definitely inferior. The incorporation of "dormant" aliens brought back to life by sucking the life-energies of living humans was NOT what occurred in the book, and in this film version seemed really stupid. The female protagonist Bobbi Anderson experienced a totally different fate in the screen version, and this grated on me. And worst of all, the people in the book lost their teeth as part of their process of being transformed into "Tommyknockers." In the movie, people lost their teeth, but the "aliens" themselves had full sets of teeth--so what was the point of the tooth loss by humans?

Still, for most of the way, the production was carried out reasonably skillfully. Yes, at times the plot drags a bit, but that's how the book unfolded, as well. Overall, this adaptation is a nice try, worth seeing, but not likely to be remembered as a "triumph."

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not as scarey as I'd thought!
Review: While not a Stephan King fan, I am a Jimmy Smits fan so I checked out this movie. It wasn't as creepy as I thought it might be, and Jimmy had some pretty good scenes along the way. Not my favourite sort of viewing, but nice to see Smits!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: ARE YOU PEOPLE MAD?
Review: Why give it such low ratings? I loved it! The only thing wrong with it, I thought, was the fakeness of the aliens but besides they it was smart.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers...knocking at my door!
Review: Yes,it is Stephen King time again. And Tommyknockers is a good movie. Some scary scenes, and great supernatural event, like only King does it. But the movie gets a little boring. Maybe if the movie was cut down a bit, it could be more interesting. The rhyme of The Tommyknockers is great. That was actually the most frightning in the whole movie. So then we have come to a conclusion: Are you a Stephen King fan...see it. If you aren't into the King...it could be worth renting!


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