Garrett’s Grumblings – 06/04/2015 – Remake-apalooza
Well, they have finally done it. After years and years of me being a huge proponent of remakes, and defending their existence, a few select instances in movie watching have finally pushed me over the edge. To the dark side, if you will. I think a big part of the existence behind two of these three remakes is they did not pounce on the possibility of making a sequel before it passed them by. In a way, that has to be commended. But if future filmmakers are gong to take advantage of these absences by just making one of their own. Now how productive is that?
The first major faux pas I’m going to cover has to do with remaking a beloved classic like Poltergeist. You are not trying to capture lightning in a bottle as much as lazily rehash scenes in a way that showcases new methods of visual effects more than the emotions that came with them to begin with. Case in point being last month’s remake of the seminal 1982 film Poltergeist. As I said in my review of the film, producer Sam Raimi and director Gil Kenan thought placing fan favorite Sam Rockwell in a family setting much like Craig T Nelson in the original would make you care just as much for him and his family. Guess what? They were wrong. They would have had just as much, if not more success putting Rockwell in this type of setting without plastering the Poltergeist namesake on the film’s title. What remakes like this and 2009’s The Stepfather do is place new characters in the exact same situations as before. Instead of us caring, we are thereby distracted by questions of why they exist in a familiar world to begin with.
I’m not going to spend too much time dissecting this second faux pas because the boys already did a fantastic job of doing so on the most recent edition of the Binge Cast. But I was about knocked out of my seat a week or so ago when I sat down with my soda and popcorn…and the brand new trailer to a remake of 1991’s Point Break appeared. Now, besides the fact that 1991 does not seem to be as long ago as it actually is, the announcement of a remake to it started pushing the side of my brain that starts revolting. Now the stunts in the trailer look phenomenal. But when all was said and done, the end of this trailer left me with just as sour a taste in my mouth that I had after the entire Poltergeist film. Why? What is the…point? See what I did there? What Point Break -which is not a brilliant movie by any means- was about was heists and some kick ass stunts, all nullified by an early 90s slickness. What can we expect from this? Hopefully, with it coming out the week after Episode VII, major floppage.
And I end this rant with the worst of the worst. Now, this ‘news’ is not stamped in stone by any means. But earlier this week, it was ‘reported’ that Dwayne Johnson is in talks to star in and produce a remake of 1986’s Big Trouble in Little China. What makes this bit of news ironic is just a month and a half ago I wrote an article about remakes which I am shocked have not happened yet. My reasoning was that film would seem like the perfect fodder to do so, with all genres mixed into one. But then again, that film sometimes quite literally captured lightning in a bottle. and everything I have detailed about what remakes do to dilute what they are trying to redo is a huge part of why I do not want this film to happen. Nothing against Mr Johnson, but could you imagine what would happen if he shot rocks onto his head? It would feel forced. Kind of like how Hollywood is looking nowadays.
The good news is we always have the originals to watch.