[...] years of inconsistency have eroded that marketing value, and even though the latest big-screen arrival, "Stephen King's Riding the Bullet," comes from a very personal place in the writer's psyche -- it was the first short story King wrote following a near-fatal 1999 traffic accident -- both the anticipation factor and writer-director Mick Garris' slick adaptation fail to live up to the old hype. The trek quickly turns into a nocturnal sideshow of macabre goings-on, leading up to a bargain made between Jackson and a self-styled grim reaper, played by David Arquette in a vintage red car. By the time he's finished throwing in the assorted CGI-assisted fantasy sequences and whooshing flashbacks, it all gets too gimmicky for the picture's own good, and despite the spirited work of its blast-from-the-past cast (also including Cliff Robertson), this is one King concept that would have been better left on the printed page.

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