Back in the mid-80s, novelist Stephen King was prolific and it seemed that barely a few months went by that a new film adaptation was not making its way to the screen, often with varying degrees of success. Christine was one of his more popular books of the time taking that old nutshell of the possessed car and making seem a whole lot more plausible and less silly than it should be. Hopes were raised when it was announced that horror director John Carpenter was helming the film. Carpenter was in a downswing and desperately needed a hit. After making the classic Halloween, Carpenter had a more modest success with the underrated The Fog. Unfortunately, his badly thought out Escape from NY tanked and his disastrous remake of The Thing (which now has an indefensible cult following) had been eviscerated by critics and imploded at the box office, so he was in need of a hit and King's novel offered fertile ground.
Alas, it was not to be. King's story, told through the eyes of sensitive jock Dennis, recalling past tragic events involving his nerdy high school best friend Arnie and the dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury that Arnie falls in love with, buys and starts to restore with sinister impact, had a lot going for it. The story of a killer car is foolish, but King takes everything very seriously and populates his tale with sympathetic characters, has a good ear for how high schoolers talk, and has a strong number of requisite set pieces that stay in the memory long after one puts down the book. By contrast, Carpenter's film feels rushed, shallow and forgettable.
Carpenter makes major changes in the plot and characters, ostensibly for budget purposes, and literally all of them function as detractions. Barring a couple of amazing shots of Christine's regenerative powers, the film looks cheap. Given how much Carpenter has excised, his film still has stretches of boredom. He seems incapable of garnering sympathy for his characters and even the villains come across as half-hearted cardboard nothings.
His cast is not the best either. Veterans like Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Prosky and Christine Belford are completely wasted. The gaggle of actors playing the bullying tormentors of Arnie seem entirely too old to be in high school. In the lead, Keith Gordon, who has been much better elsewhere, makes the leap from nerdy doormat to arrogant, self-confident and ultimately psychotic with such speed that the audience never has a any rooting interest in his plight. Truthfully, this could more be the fault of the rush in the screenplay than the actor. As our protagonist, Dennis, John Stockwell is goofy, awkward and off-putting. Alexandra Paul is cast as "the prettiest girl in school", which is debatable here, and she as well has been better elsewhere. There is not much time placed in developing her relationship with Arnie so that anyone buys how badly his transition has impacted her or the lengths that she is willing to go in the film's latter portion.
Carpenter's changes in story often make no sense. Truthfully, in King's novel, Christine was fairly neutral. It was the rancid soul of her detestable former owner that possessed her and galvanized the action and change in Arnie. By omitting that character from the film and oddly mixing the characteristics with a still living character, Carpenter makes nonsense stew. Carpenter also omits the clever touch of how the souls of Christine's victims become trapped in the car and end up making diabolical passengers during attack scenes.
Worst of all, King's novel features some stunning attack sequences set in a wintry Pennsylvania, including the snow drift attack on Arnie's chief tormentor and a terrific sequence where another character is attacked in their isolated home during the height of a blizzard, but Carpenter axes all such sequences for incredibly cheap affairs. The latter character dies in the film when he inexplicably decides to hop into the driver seat of the still-smoldering car that he just witnessed driving itself into a garage and the car seat pushes itself forward so far that it crushes him. An incredibly memorable sequence has been swapped out for an unintentional embarrassment.
This all combines to make Christine a misfire. The studio obviously was not willing to cough up the budget necessary for a good film, the cast fails to inhabit their characters, and Carpenter was not inspired enough to do much with what he had, so the end result is an exceedingly mediocre testament of what might have been had anyone cared.
Alas, it was not to be. King's story, told through the eyes of sensitive jock Dennis, recalling past tragic events involving his nerdy high school best friend Arnie and the dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury that Arnie falls in love with, buys and starts to restore with sinister impact, had a lot going for it. The story of a killer car is foolish, but King takes everything very seriously and populates his tale with sympathetic characters, has a good ear for how high schoolers talk, and has a strong number of requisite set pieces that stay in the memory long after one puts down the book. By contrast, Carpenter's film feels rushed, shallow and forgettable.
Carpenter makes major changes in the plot and characters, ostensibly for budget purposes, and literally all of them function as detractions. Barring a couple of amazing shots of Christine's regenerative powers, the film looks cheap. Given how much Carpenter has excised, his film still has stretches of boredom. He seems incapable of garnering sympathy for his characters and even the villains come across as half-hearted cardboard nothings.
His cast is not the best either. Veterans like Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Prosky and Christine Belford are completely wasted. The gaggle of actors playing the bullying tormentors of Arnie seem entirely too old to be in high school. In the lead, Keith Gordon, who has been much better elsewhere, makes the leap from nerdy doormat to arrogant, self-confident and ultimately psychotic with such speed that the audience never has a any rooting interest in his plight. Truthfully, this could more be the fault of the rush in the screenplay than the actor. As our protagonist, Dennis, John Stockwell is goofy, awkward and off-putting. Alexandra Paul is cast as "the prettiest girl in school", which is debatable here, and she as well has been better elsewhere. There is not much time placed in developing her relationship with Arnie so that anyone buys how badly his transition has impacted her or the lengths that she is willing to go in the film's latter portion.
Carpenter's changes in story often make no sense. Truthfully, in King's novel, Christine was fairly neutral. It was the rancid soul of her detestable former owner that possessed her and galvanized the action and change in Arnie. By omitting that character from the film and oddly mixing the characteristics with a still living character, Carpenter makes nonsense stew. Carpenter also omits the clever touch of how the souls of Christine's victims become trapped in the car and end up making diabolical passengers during attack scenes.
Worst of all, King's novel features some stunning attack sequences set in a wintry Pennsylvania, including the snow drift attack on Arnie's chief tormentor and a terrific sequence where another character is attacked in their isolated home during the height of a blizzard, but Carpenter axes all such sequences for incredibly cheap affairs. The latter character dies in the film when he inexplicably decides to hop into the driver seat of the still-smoldering car that he just witnessed driving itself into a garage and the car seat pushes itself forward so far that it crushes him. An incredibly memorable sequence has been swapped out for an unintentional embarrassment.
This all combines to make Christine a misfire. The studio obviously was not willing to cough up the budget necessary for a good film, the cast fails to inhabit their characters, and Carpenter was not inspired enough to do much with what he had, so the end result is an exceedingly mediocre testament of what might have been had anyone cared.