Reboots or Remakes that Make or Break a Franchise.

To celebrate the release of the Sony Pictures film, The Amazing Spider-Man, coming to theatres this July 3rd 2012 I have decided to speak about the subject of reboots and remakes that make or break a franchise. For those of you who do not know, a reboot is where a piece of narrative is discontinued and therefore lists the continuity of that original film or series of films to be non-canon and stats with new and fresh ideas. Whereas a remake is the opposite, it uses the previous films as a base for its source material and uses the same storyline while adding other elements and themes which usually updates a film to match a modernised setting. Now that is cleared up, let me give you a few examples of each remake and reboot; some good, bad and darn right ugly.

Reboots

Alright, first let's start with the reboots.

Best

We never get tired of 007, even though the Bourne movie franchise reinvented what it means to be a spy in the 21st century. Producers of Casino Royale (2006) booted Pierce Brosnan out and birthed the MI6 agent with a whole new face and hardened image in the form of renowned actor Daniel Craig who was praised for his performance in Layer Cake (2004). Stemming closer to the Ian Flemming novels of yesteryear, Martin Campbell envisioned a blood-thirsty and less charismatic Bond. With mission after mission of exonerating talent from the main and supporting cast members and fast-paced action, this Bond spawned a less received sequel Quantum of Solace (2008) and 23rd Bond 'Sky Fall' (2012) with Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road) at the helm.

Fine

After Director Ang Lee's (Brokeback Mountain) effort with "Hulk" (2003) made the green giant seem like a laughing stock with irrelevant melodrama, as borish as Shakespeare's Hamlet, Louis Letterier (Transporter 1 & 2) decided to make the Angry Man whole again with a new back story, cast and Marvel having creative control. Even the actor in the lead pitched in to make the script deviate from the previous movie as much as possible that created a less weepish, heroic and smarter Bruce Banner (Edward Norton). The script was tighter with some "easter eggs" found on the silver screen but was boggled down with intense special effects and CGI that turned it from soap opera to popcorn flick. However, the movie had its high points that shone brighter than its low points.

Worst

I will admit, I never watched the 1994 film based on the video game series but this reboot of the movie does not give me the incentive to watch the last one. Starring Kirstin Kreuk as the titular character, very few adaptations of very well known games can translate very well in cinema and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li (2009) is not one of them. Although the concept was good, I just felt the producers Patrick Aiello and Ashok Amritraj either did not care about the source material or did not try hard enough. Badly casted and terribly choreographed with less than inspiring plot and characters, Kreuk's Chun-Li I'm afraid did not carry the film. This film made Dragon Ball Evolution (2009) look better than it did. Oh well, at least we have the game to fall back to.

Remakes

Now for the remakes, here they are.

Best

First of all, I did not even know Scarface (1983) was a remake. Well if so, it is a very successful one at that and is actually based on the 1932 film of the same name. The well over 2 hours long crime film tells us the story of Cuban refugee, Tony Montanna (Al Pacino) who becomes a drug crime lord in Miami, Florida with "Manny Ray" (Steven Bauer), it lets us know about the rise and fall of their infamous drug cartel organization. With a great structure, acting, themes and well envisiged direction by De Palma, this cautionary tale scripted by Oliver Stone allowed us to dig deeper into the psyche of Montana and is arguably one of the best gangster films of all time.

Fine

A remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Internal Affairs, The Departed (2006) was directed by Martin Scorsesee and starred such big names as Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson. Brilliantly scripted, well sliced together and strong acting, this jumbled thriller told a story of corrupt cop (Damon) who is placed on the police force as an informant for mob boss, Costello (Nicholson) and Costigan (DiCaprio), recent graduate of the police academy, grudgingly agrees to go undercover as an enforcer for Costello. This confused mess was hard to digest and was thankfully unpredictable, although the message behind the film could not be clearly defined plus the character of Costigan is a bit underdeveloped in terms of his links to his criminal past.

Worst

Directed by the great Tim Burton in 2001, and based on Pierre Boulle's book and the original 1968 film, the Apes riding the King's Horsemen came up with Planet of the Apes. Aboard a space station, sometime in the late 2020's, Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) sends a Chimpanzee into a freak storm and he pilots after the primate. Davidson and crew find themselves on a barren wasteland in a world run by humanoid Apes. Great premise but weak execution from direction, prosphetics, structure and downgraded plotlines, the movie itself eventually became a paradox of it's own doing. The tone was just so bizarre and silly, even the final showdown and climax that ended it all was over the top and it did not make any sense and reminded me of the excuse of an ending from Terminator 3.

Well, that's it for reboots and remakes. I will come back to you next week with  what I got planned for all of you.

- Written by Andre Farquharson

 

Do all Scientist's lose their way?

With the release of The Avengers coming to cinemas in less than a month a way in the UK, (we get it early for once, yay!) I decided to put together a question, which has burned through my head since I ever got into movies. In fact, had brewed many of our minds: Do all scientist's lose their way in many media? And what I mean by that is what makes Doctor's in various fields in Science play with God, per se and screw up? This conversation had come about yesterday when I had a brief talk about motivational speakers, which lead into character's of the media and that is when the question cropped up. Most scientist's in TV, comic books and so on are so engrossed in their science whether mixing chemicals, serums and genes or testing particle accelerators, Gamma-spheres and whatever invention that came to mind and these many trials and prodding ultimately becomes their downfall.

Curiosity literally kills the cat, with these folks. Take for example Norman Osborn from the Spider-Man films; shrewd, egotistical, brash father, scientist and CEO of Oscorp. He started off being some kind of father figure to Peter Parker/Spider-Man and only made pep talk with his son, Harry Osborn. Norman had ambition and was not selfish at first, but wanted perfection in the form of soldiers with untapped human potential. So, instead of listening to Dr. Stromm and "go back to formula" Norman took a dangerous risk and inhaled the fumes of the drug and of course became the Green Goblin. He got killed and his son became New Goblin and met the same fate. Another example is Dr. Sebastian Caine from Hollow Man, immediately, we get a smell that reeks of bad company and his disappearing act multiplied his behaviour ten fold. The same can be said for the alien chick from Species.

I guess the question to ask is what is the motivation for their experiments? Let's be real here, some of us would actually want to improve our everyday lives. It's the part of us that want to be more or simply want to make things easier for ourselves. So we continue to advance more and more in technology but isn't the quality of what life has to offer enough? Most of who I mentioned are villains but what about the heroes (or anti-heroes)? Mohinder Suresh from the TV show Heroes started off 2 seasons with his research searching for extraordinary people who could do great things and found a way to make himself superhuman with a formula. It started off great having spider-like powers but he slowly became infected and lacked reasoning but he got a cure and only is left with super-strength and agility. He returned to live a normal life with his new girlfriend in India.

Next will be an interview for Flyplann,

- Written by Andre Farquharson