Posted on 12/12/2008 10:00:44 AM PST by steve-b
If you're looking for chuckles this holiday season, bypass the miserably unfunny "Four Christmases" and go where the real comedy is -- "The Day the Earth Stood Still," a clumsy, moronic remake of Robert Wise's brilliant 1951 classic about an alien invader trying to save the human race from its own self-destructive impulses.
What did poor Wise do, incidentally, to deserve such treatment? His chilling horror masterpiece "The Haunting" was already put through the meat-grinder with an effects-heavy 1999 remake, and his thriller "The Andromeda Strain" was revisited with ill results in a SciFi Channel re-do earlier this year. What next -- a hip-hop reinterpretation of "The Sound of Music"? (Granted, Queen Latifah could totally tear up "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," but still…)
The new "Day" can't be bothered to include the thought-provoking dialogue of the original, choosing instead to bury the audience with special effects that are visually impressive but no substitute for an actual script. And what words do remain are so exquisitely awful that they provide some of the season's biggest laughs....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I believe that it's Jennifer Conolley (sp?)
She was just on the David Letterman show, and I was really shocked. This was without a doubt one of the world's most beautiful women just a few years ago. Today she looks emaciated.
Mark
Johnny Mnemonic is shakespear compared to this politcally correct unwatchable tripe.
Yeah ... I saw the new one with my kids last week. It was laughably awful. It got to the point where I was trying to predict which disaster would happen next.
That phase also makes an appearance in the hero’s office cubicle in the movie “Tron”.
It would be easy to mistake the original for just some liberal tripe, but there are some deeper meanings.
For example, there is a strong argument that Klaatu was a Jesus, second coming, allegory, and while still benevolent and full of grace, he is making it clear that heaven has lost patience with man’s utter viciousness and destructiveness. Not a perfect allegory, by far, but a different take from the obvious.
Ironically, in retrospect, Klaatu makes a good allegory for, of all things, “Uncle Sam”, and the American outlook on the world. That is, Klaatu represents the peaceful worlds, and is sent to our Earth to warn us not to even think about using our nuclear weapons against them, and for Earth to get its house in order, or else.
How different is that from how the US looks at Pakistan, a nuclear armed chaos full of violent and unpredictable groups? Klaatu is like a US ambassador sent there, with the US military along for the ride, to tell Pakistan to cut it out. If they don’t listen to the ambassador, Gort, the US military, is going to kick their rear end.
Nothing liberal about that at all. Gort clearly demonstrated to the Iraqis the value of not being an international threat. Good for Gort.
As far as the Keanu remake goes, it sucks lizard eggs.
IIRC, his craziness was caused by too much time exposed to high pressures, or something like that. I didn't see it as a political statement- the other SEALS were fine, it was just the one guy who was off his nut due to circumstances outside of his control.
Yes, let’s a avoid a nerd fight here :)
‘Ooooo, math fight!’
CBS’s “Numbers” first season
Andromeda Strain was written by Michael Crichton.
I think it is safe to say that this is an unWise remake.
The demon was released because Ash MESSED UP the recitation. He couldn’t remember the last word (it’s N word... Nickel? Necktie?)
Theme of new movie - Stop polluting and destroying the planet with your wasteful usage of fossil fuels or we will kill you, but don't ask me to share my never-ending, cheap, non-polluting energy source I used to come here.
LOL, I was just laughing about Army of Darkness.
In the new movie does Klaatu use Algore Carbon Offsets for money?
“The 1978 remake of Body Snatchers was one of the few excellent remakes in movie history.”
Agree, and I thought the 1993 remake was really good too. There’s a particularly creepy scene in this version where one of the pod people denounces an impostor (a real human trying to pass as a pod person) that is scarier than the 1978 depiction of same.
I thought “I am Legend” was an improvement over “The Omega Man.” The Omega Man seemed pretty scary when I saw it as a kid, but I just watched it again, and now the zombies seem comically stupid to me as they are wearing monk-like robes and jumping down on people to attack them.
Some films need no remake though. I can’t imagine an improved version of The Thing (1982, stars Kurt Russell).
The article was referring to the recent movie remake of The Andromeda Strain.
The remake really went off the rails at the end -- it didn't resemble the original book or the first movie.
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