Remakes Are For The Lazy

Its officially hump day and I hope everyone out there is having a great week. Mine has been filled with meetings, and plenty of cocktail outings so needless to say, I am having a great week. What I have for you below is from a contributing writer to the Modern Gentleman cause. Mike Wiley specializes in film reviews and critiques and does some script writing of his own with partner Derek King. These guys are great and you can expect big things from them. Anyways, Mike wrote a great article which I am showcasing below. Enjoy, I think he's pretty much right on.

This morning was pretty much like any other morning. I was out a little late the night before, I had a little too much to drink, the morning is really the early afternoon, and I am on Rotten Tomatoes checking out what new movies are coming out and whether or not I want to go see them. After stumbling through a few suspiciously but ultimately falsely titled articles, I came across the trailer for Hollywood's newest 70's classic big budget remake: The A-Team. Complete with "The Hangover's" Bradley Cooper, "District 9's" Sharlto Copley, the resurgent Liam Neeson, and Rampage Jackson of UFC fame rounding it out as Baracus, a role that sent a similar wrestler, Mr. T, to international stardom.

The trailer was pretty much as expected; a lot of really tightly shot action footage of extremely fit dudes and sleek cars and neato technology on top of some kind of needle thin plot loosely based on the television series. After it was over, though, I sat there thinking to myself: What are they going for here? And when I ask that question I don't mean what's going to happen to the character's through out the story, I mean what is the over all mood the audience is going to leave with, because there are a lot of directions one can take a 70's big budget remake. It can be tongue in cheek, where the audience and director are both sort of in on the fact that this is just a remake and shoots for a nostalgic type of melodrama and comedy, or it can take itself as serious as malaria and try to reboot an action franchise for the next generation of movie goers. Or it can fall any where in between, which is what brought me to my ultimate revelation. I don't really like any type of remake. I can't name ONE remake that has made me feel like my life was better for having watched it. I have never learned anything from a remake. I have never had a good conversation about a remake, atleast not a good conversation indicative of a good movie. I don't like them. They never seem to make much money at the box office so it seems like I am not alone in that sentiment. What I can't really figure out is why producers continue to greenlight this crap.

Now if you really wanted to get nitpicky, you could technically label Transformers and Batman as remakes, two of the most popular and successful movies ever, but one was guaranteed to sell, and the other one never really wasn't cool or went out of style. Transformers gave you that brilliant eye candy that can only be achieved through state of the art, computer animated robots. The kind of brilliance that gives every male from 6 to 36 a boner despite having one of the most atrociously written scripts on the planet. The kind of brilliance that guarantee's 300 million plus domestically at the box office. Transformers could have sold that many tickets even if it was helmed by apes, and that is not a shot at Michael Bay. Not really.

Batman is and always will be awesome. Period.

Now with those out of the way, what are we left with? Charlie's Angels? Charlie's Angel's Full Throttle? All those movies did was help McG ruin what could have been a fantastic Terminator reboot. But DAMNIT, there's that word again: reboot. Remake, Reboot, Retarded. For me it always comes back to the same problem. None of these movies know where they are going. None of them have an identity. They are a hollow shell of something that was rich, but could only be rich once. Something that was only rich the first time around, and nothing else could ever replicate that single experience. I imagine the writers and producers all sitting around, confusedly tossing ideas back and forth to one another and still arguing over the same problems and plot points. Should this be comedic? Should this exist in the same universe? Should we make Starsky and Hutch secretly love each other that way but never realize that love because their love of justice supercedes it? Overall, no conclusion they come to is going to make it live up to expectations. Movie goers are going to see the previews for months, building up plenty of nostalgia which hopefully bleeds over from the original generation's fan's to their kid's. The movie will open to a moderately to extremely successful first weekend, then everyone will realize it's not what they expected or a steaming pile of crap, and it will fade into the infinite darkness that is forgotten cinema.

But maybe Producers know this about remakes of already popular work. in fact, I'm fairly certain they do. They know that no matter how much time and effort they put into making this movie good, they will atleast make a little bit of money off of the movie with a sleek ad campaign at Taco Bell. Ultimately they could make a trailer's worth of decent footage, fill in the rest with home movies of the cast and crews baby showers and holiday vacay's, and it would technically still turn a moderate profit. Think about the last remake you saw and I think you will agree with me. In fact, here is a list of recent remakes that come to mind that were built up for months but ultimately let me down: The Omen, Dr. Dolittle, Flubber, The Avengers, The Brady Bunch, Mr. Magoo, George of the Jungle, Thunderbirds, Hold on let me catch my breath... Bewitched, The Producers, G.I.Joe, Cheaper by the Dozen, Charlie's Angels 1 and 2, and the list goes on. Hollywood is even churning out a remake of the 1980's Patrick Swayze cult classic "Red Dawn", which if anyone thinks about for half a second will realize that story is no longer culturally relevant and if Communist's did parachute in and invade the heartland of America, images of our missiles flying up their asses would be all over Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter before all of the soldiers had even jumped off the plane.

Now this means one of two things: Either the producers and writers are going to write the same story only this time it will come off as a steaming pile, or they try and write a different story, using the franchise name as a way to sell tickets, and it still comes off as a steaming pile. It is lose lose for the movie goers and just down right selfish of producers. Is there really a lack of decent original material so drastic we had to turn to "Red Dawn"? Really? I just don't believe it. I refuse to believe it, and with the recent success of Avatar (a completely original work), you shouldn't believe it either. Remakes are for the lazy, and the blame falls on both sides. I think as a lover of the cinema I will no longer see remakes of anything from now on. If everyone takes this mentality and starts asking for more from directors and writers and producers, then they will have no choice but to deliver. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over, hoping to get different results. If that is the case, then I don't see how you can define continuing to produce remakes as anything other than that: Insanity. I invite you to take this pledge with me, and hopefully we can stop the nonsense, stop the insanity, and create a much more productive, enjoyable, and memorable movie experience.

Sincerely Yours,

Michael Wiley