Archive for the 'Lame Remakes' Category

Why do people re-make movies? Sometimes it is to further explore topics in the original, or to expound on missing elements. Sometimes they re-make them to turn an abstract foreign film into something Americans can understand. Sometimes they just do it because they can. I have a sneaking suspicion that The Omen got re-made because [...]

Poseidon

That people had learned their lesson and not named a ship The Poseidon. Besides, aren’t ships supposed to be given girls’ names?
Don’t get your hopes up– this is not the made-for-TV remake of The Poseidon Adventure that starred Steve Guttenberg, Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, and that chick who was Dr. Corday on E.R. I [...]

The Avengers

Starring: Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes
This is one Baby Boomer nostalgia tv show that sort of made the jump to moviedom fairly OK. I admit I found this movie really amusing at times. I was never a huge fan of the original series, however, so I probably missed a lot. Uma Thurman actually [...]

The Avengers

And a witty response to you, too, Mr. Steed Starring: Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes
OK, I actually like Uma Thurman, despite what anyone else says. As ex-supermodels go, she’s a fairly good actress, and manages to bring a little wry humor into most of the roles that she plays. Unfortunately, I thought this [...]

Lord of the Flies

No parents. No teachers. No rules… no clothes. Starring: Balthazar Getty, Chris Furrh
Who could resist Balthazar Getty running around naked covered in ash and pig’s blood? You know you can’t! This movie seemed to be just a big excuse to show us fifteen-year-olds frolicking in their underwear. In fact, I [...]

Starring: Mike Meyers, Elizabeth Hurley

I actually liked this movie a lot better than the first Austin Powers flick. The first dwells really heavily on all of Austin’s personal quirks, which weren’t all that funny to begin with, in order to cover up a major absence of plot. Plus, the nineties vs. sixties thing [...]

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, Gerard Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, John Malkovich
The best part of this movie was seeing Athos’s (Malkovich) son doing his John Malkovich impression. I mean, he was really good at it! Other than that, this movie was fairly boring. It details the lives of the now washed-up Three Musketeers, as [...]

Royal Deceit

Starring: Christian Bale, Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne
Also known as Amled, Prinsen af Jylland , this Danish gem is an example of what the government of Denmark can do if it has a lot of money on its hands, but not many ideas. This film is a retelling of the Danish saga (”Amled, Prince [...]

Hunchback

Starring: Mandy Patinkin, Richard Harris
Someone left the baby out in the rain…and he grew up to be a hunchback! Richard Harris stars as Dom Frollo, the Monsignor who takes care of the baby and lusts after/hates Esmeralda the gypsy. Mandy Patinkin is the lovable Quasimoto himself. A slightly draggy made-for-tv movie based [...]

Lost In Space

Warning… Warning… bad movie approaching… Starring: Gary Oldman, the Guy from Friends
This film starts out OK enough- All of the original cast of the Lost In Space tv show got pointless cameos. I thought perhaps this would be a spoof of the original series. Unfortunately not. It was a draggy predictable sermon [...]

Rear Window

Starring: Christopher Reeve, Daryl Hannah
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for handicapped rights. I firmly believe that all buildings should be wheelchair accessible, and sure, let them have all the good parking spaces! However, I do not believe that people have the right to use high tech multi-camera infrared surveillance devices to [...]

Psycho

Starring: Anne Heche, Vince Vaughan
“Why?,” you ask yourself. “Because it’s never been done before” is the response. Well, OK. I’m all for experimentation… but please don’t do it again!
Gus VanSandt has re-created the Hitchcock thriller in this 1998 re-make. He’s done more than re-create it, however, he’s remade it almost exactly [...]

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd
What can I say? I’ve been waiting for this movie, like the rest of my generation, for 16 years! In the meantime, I’ve had my hopes and dreams shattered with the realization that the 3 previous releases were actually extremely cheesy. But still, I [...]

The Mask of Zorro

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins
Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins buckle some serious swash in this study of plot devices. Banderas is the kid who idolizes Zorro, and then grows up to be a drunken petty thief who needs Zorro (Hopkins) to show him a thing or two. There is a girl involved, [...]

Form of a Plot Device! Shape of a Fight Scene! Starring: Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Bruce Davison
In the not-so-distant future, pollution caused by the Atomic Age has triggered the so-called “X-Factor” in humans, a genetic sequence that triggers useful and glamorous mutations. People with this X-Factor develop [...]