Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Writer: Eric Heisserer
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Once again, Hollywood bastardizes a classic '80s horror film -- is anyone really surprised? Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and screenwriter Eric Heisserer apparently never met a clichéd bit of dialogue they didn't like (I threw up in my mouth a little bit when Kate, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, looks up at the night sky and says, "I'll never look at the stars in the same way again.") The filmmakers are so slavishly devoted to John Carpenter's 1982 version that they spend too much time connecting dots and not enough time building their own movie. Cast and crew go through the motions with no hint of surprise or originality, and to make matters worse, in amongst the many plot holes is one of my biggest pet peeves, a particularly egregious example of Made of Iron -- our heroine survives a fall from a great height onto cold hard metal with nary a scratch or broken bone (see also: the fifth season finale of Lost and every superhero movie ever made.)
Rating: 1.5 out of 4.
Yeah... I saw it a few days ago and wasn't exactly blown away. I had to enjoy on principal though, aliens frozen in ice, Norwegians, flame throwers, etc... I read a few reviews beforehand so I didn't exactly have high expectations. There were a couple sequences that were reminiscent of the Carpenter version in terms of creepiness, aka, literally two that I can recall.
ReplyDeleteI did miss the overall "pit of despair" feeling of the original, the new one ended giving the main character an "out", whereas Kurt Russell was left in the original with the viewer assuming that he's not going to make it. If they would have at least done that I would have appreciated it...
It's one of those movies that's decent enough while you're watching it, especially the little geek-thrill moments where you see how it matches up with the Carpenter film, but as soon as you leave the theater you think, Hey, wait a minute, that didn't make any sense. (I had the same problem with REAL STEEL.)
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you!