Stagecoach (1986)

Released in 1939, John Ford's Stagecoach is one of the all-time great westerns. It was hugely influential in countless westerns that followed, and of course, is famous for helping make John Wayne a huge star, one of the biggest movie stars of all-time. So what's the biggest form of flattery? A remake! And unnecessary ones! Ford's western has been remade twice, first in 1966, and with today's review, a 1986 TV western, Stagecoach.

In the small town of Tonto, a stagecoach is set to leave and keeps its schedule in making it to its next stop in Lordsburg. It is far from an easy ride though across the desert, especially when reports of Geronimo and his Apache warriors being on the warpath start to hit the town. An already dangerous ride is that much worse. The driver, Buck (John Schneider), intends to do his job though, taking the coach through, Apaches be damned. So with a full coach of passengers, Buck leaves Tonto with a cavalry escort hoping to avoid Geronimo and his warriors. His passengers, all of them, have reasons to undertake such a dangerous trip. Some are trying to get somewhere while others are simply trying to get away, but to a person, they believe they're right. Are they? Can they get to Lordsburg safely without coming under attack?

Okay, No. 1. Something that needs to be said. There's no reason to remake Ford's film. NO reason. It's about as perfect a western as you'll find out there. So to remake it in different formats twice? Unnecessary to say the least. I haven't seen the 1966 version -- I'd like to, the cast is pretty crazy -- but I feel safe saying the original is better. The same here. Why bother remaking a movie that didn't need to be remade? Well, the answer isn't one you might easily come up with.

Any ideas? This TV western actually puts a country music spin on the original formula! Didn't see that one coming now, did you?!? The cast includes Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson in major roles. Now even as a non-country music fan, that's an impressive pairing of talent! The biggest difference between the '86 TV flick and the '39 original is the re-working of certain characters so the Big 4 Country Stars are actually given something to do. Cash is Marshal Curly Wilcox, on the hunt for Kristofferson's Ringo Kid, with Nelson as the Doc Holliday (quite the change!), and Jennings as Hatfield, a talented gambler (some would say cheater) looking for some redemption. Take the original characters/story, add country stars, lather, rinse and repeat and you definitely get some tweaked stories! That's not a bad thing, giving a refreshing new look at a familiar story.

Of the four, I thought Cash and Nelson come out the best. Cash isn't the greatest actor, but he's very natural, and his scenes with John Schneider's Buck are excellent, two experienced trailhands discussing what their best plan is and should be. Nelson too is excellent as maybe the most famous dentist ever, Doc Holliday (not any old Doc like the Ford version), philosophizing and smoking a cigar and generally having a good time. Obviously he's having some fun with the part. Jennings is okay as Hatfield but nothing crazy. I'm a big Kristofferson fan, but it's a bit of bad casting here. Maybe it's because John Wayne's take on Ringo is so iconic, but Kristofferson is too old for the part and his scenes with Dallas (Elizabeth Ashley), an aging, disillusioned prostitute, lack some chemistry. It kinda feels like a western Last Vegas or Grumpy Old Men, four aging stars getting together and having some fun. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Who else to look for on the crowded stagecoach? Also look for the always welcome Tony Franciosa as Gatewood, a corrupt banker getting out of town with his bank's latest deposit (some $30,000), Anthony Newley as Peacock, a traveling whiskey salesman, and Mary Crosby as Lucy Mallory, a very pregnant young woman traveling west to meet up with her husband, a cavalry officer.

So while there are some changes along the way -- some major, some not as significant -- mostly this TV western sticks with the original's story. The soundtrack isn't entirely country (featuring some solid uses of guitar), and the locations are solid but don't register like Monument Valley does -- I know! Go figure in that department. The biggest changes are saved for the end in a finale that feels somewhat disjointed and/or rushed. It's not an especially good flick, but it is entertaining from beginning to end. The novelty of the country casting is just enough to give it a recommendation. It ain't on par with the 1939 original, but few are. Still....it's not bad.

Stagecoach (1986): ** 1/2 /****

Mad Max: Fury Road

Well, the buzz on 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road has been ridiculously, uniformly, amazingly positive. Critically and with audiences, it is finding its spot in the summer blockbuster world. I really wanted to see it, but then when people were absolutely RAVING about it, I N-E-E-D-E-D to see it. So here we are. It took me a couple weeks, but away with one of the best movies of the year!

Years into the future, the world has torn itself apart, the Earth seemingly on the brink of total destruction. The land is a scorched wasteland where water, food and all the necessities for survival are in incredibly short supply. On this post-apocalyptic, scorched wasteland, a drifter named Max (Tom Hardy) is on his own, an armored car to his name with little else. He's captured by the enforcers of a brutal ruler, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), and kept as a prisoner and universal blood donor, but this isn't the end for this quiet drifter. Immortan Joe's brutal dictatorship is up in the air though as one of his sub-commanders, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), has gone rogue. The Imperator has hijacked one of Joe's armored convoys and stole five of his beautiful women breeders and is on the run. Immortan Joe rolls out his entire armored army and tears across the desert in pursuit. Along for the ride in his role as blood donor? Max, waiting for his chance to break free.

Holy crazy movie. It's been three days since I saw this movie, and I'm still recovering! Oh, totally in a good way if there was any confusion. Director George Miller directed the three Mad Max movies from the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the trilogy starring Mel Gibson as Max. Miller has stayed busy in the years since, but he returns here to put an incredible new spin on a familiar character and franchise. And that's my rule. If you're going to reboot a franchise, DO....IT....RIGHT. This film takes the elements that made the original Mad Max so popular (some in cult classic fashion), throws it in the blender, adds some new extreme elements -- I would say mind-inducing drugs -- and tears it up. As a post-apocalyptic story, as an action movie, as a gigantically successful blockbuster, 'Fury' is unlike just about any movie you've ever seen and very much for the better.

As a visual medium, in storytelling technique, in its frenetic action, Miller creates a world. His post-apocalyptic world is bizarre and trippy and unsettling and deranged and completely amazing to watch. Whole studies and papers could be written about the visual look of the world. Immortan Joe wears a bizarre suit that encapsulates its lecherous body while also favoring a mask covering his teeth that gives him a predatory look. His army of War Boys wear black pants, no shirts, have shaved heads and are painted an immaculate white. The surviving peasants wear rags, desperately awaiting handouts from Joe and his forces. It's more than that though. It's how they talk, how they interact, the culture we're introduced to, the little excruciatingly cool details. Not everything is spelled out, not everything is explained, but the trip into this drugged out, sand-ravaged world where death is incredibly cheap and even trivial, it all works. All those little things come together to work in perfect fashion, like puzzle pieces clicking into place.

So if you ask me, Tom Hardy can do no wrong. I've loved just about every role he's done, but this one is interesting. This is his first personal starring franchise as he's signed on for several more Mad Max movies, supposedly four. What's remarkable about this part? He says virtually nothing the entire movie other than one late monologue, and that's all strategy and planning, nothing personal about him. This is a performance of presence and owning the screen without much in the way of dialogue. We know little about Hardy's Max Rockatansky other than that he has hallucinations of his daughter, which clicks with the original trilogy. We know virtually nothing about him and are given even less as the money goes along. What are we left with? A man hell-bent on survival even as he's thrust into a horrific battle of life and death that he has nothing to do with. I hope the future Mad Max movies delve into Max's character and background more, but in the meantime, his presence and on-screen persona are more than enough.

Let's be honest though. This movie could have been called Mad Max and Imperator Furiosa: Fury Road. The movie's success hinges on Hardy and Theron. There just aren't many female action heroes, and Theron's Furiosa is a doozy of a success. Hair cropped close to her head, black makeup over her eyes and forehead, one-armed, Furiosa is a true film badass. She's had enough of working for Immortan Joe and steals his women, escapes and plans to resettle in the Green Place, where she grew up. It's cool to see a strong female action hero, on the same level as her male counterpart. There just isn't much dialogue for Max and Furiosa to bond, but through their horrific trials on the run, they do form an uneasy, somewhat trusting partnership. An excellent one-two punch in lead performances.

A cast member of the original Mad Max movie from 1979, Keays-Byrne is an incredible villain, an imposing and intimidating presence who's visual look is as terrifying as the character itself. His rivals turned partners are named the Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter) and the People Eater (John Howard), their armies of enforcers along for the ride. Representing the War Boys is Nux (Nicholas Hoult), a young fighter so desperately seeking and fighting for Immortan Joe's approval. With names like Toast the Knowing, the Splendid Angharad, Capable, the Dag and Cheedo the Fragile, Joe's breeding women include Zoe Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton. Also look for Nathan Jones as Rictus, Joe's muscle-bound son, always by his side ready to dispatch any enemies.

The style and world is awesome. Hardy and Theron are quite memorable. Blah blah blah. This is one of the most ridiculously entertaining, hugely stylized action movies EVER. E-V-E-R. What's special though is that Miller and Co. appeared to have actually filmed much of the action sequences. Novel concept, ain't it? Sure, there's CGI sprinkled here and there, but a majority of the action was filmed with real cars and real people doing some crazy, goofy stunts. This is a 2-hour car chase. That's it and that's all. We get little glimpses of the people, who they are and the world they live in, but this is a 2-hour car chase. Process that. It's crazy and high-reaching when you think about what Miller set out to do and then execute the plan so strongly. Max, Furiosa and the breeders end up on the War Rig, a tricked out, armored oil tanker hauling ass across the desert with warring caravans of scavengers and marauders hot on their trail. The long shots of these murdering scavengers tearing across the desert are beautiful and simple and straightforward, always keeping the viewer apprised of where the action is and how it's developing.

It's hard to put into words how visceral, how adrenaline-pumping these scenes really are. There's just this manic energy on display with each passing scene. As Tyrese said in Fast/Furious 6, it's vehicular warfare....on steroids. Immortan Joe's forces hunt them down with brutal intensity, cars and motorcycles and trucks chasing them across the desert. The action is one thing though. The execution is another. Joe's forces ride into battle to War Boys riding on trucks playing snare drums. One man wearing red footy pajamas is strapped to a truck as he plays a three-pronged guitar that is also...a flamethrower. What? WHAT?!? The score -- heavy drums, heart-pounding throughout -- from Dutch multi-instrumentalist Junkie XL is perfectly suited to the action, adding more energy and chaos (because that's what it needed) to the already energetic, chaotic, frenetic violence. Give the soundtrack a listen HERE. Watch the movie for yourself. It's better seen several times than read in a review.

What a movie. WHAT A MOVIE.  A gusty script from Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathouris takes so many chances with its sparse dialogue and almost complete lack of characterization. The formula they used instead is pretty perfect. It took me a couple days to really process this one, but I liked and loved it more with each passing day. So freaking good. It shouldn't work this well -- just shouldn't -- but it does in all its unpredictable chaos.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015): ****/****

The Gambler (2014)

Oh, how quick we forget. Yes, it's time for another unnecessary remake review. Way back in November 2013, I reviewed 1974's The Gambler, James Caan playing a literature professor with an extreme gambling problem. Well, it's 40-plus years later so let's revamp things! Here we are with 2014's The Gambler.

Walking into an oceanfront underground casino, Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is carrying a suitcase packed with $10,000. He promptly goes up thousands and thousands of dollars...and then promptly loses it in one bet at the roulette wheel. That's just the start of his problems. A literature professor and respected writer, Bennett is in serious debt. Like $260,000 debt, and that money is coming due very quickly. He only has seven days to come up with the money or else, well, it's not going to end well for him. So already in ridiculous amounts of debt, Bennett borrows more money -- some $50,000 -- from a brutal loan shark (Michael Kenneth Williams) with a similarly fast approaching payment date. The clock is ticking. Can Bennett get his hands on all that money? Will his severe, obsessive gambling addiction even allow the possibility of getting out clean?

So my usual stance on remakes is pretty simple. There needs to be a reason for that remake to be made. Was the original really bad? Was there a ton of wasted potential? That's pretty much it. For the most part, if a movie was good, great or a classic, it doesn't need to be remade. This remake from director Rupert Wyatt is an interesting mix of the above reasons. The Caan version is pretty good (I gave it three stars), but it isn't a hugely well-known flick. Good but not great so where do we sit in the remake department? I, for one, liked this new flick a lot, flaws and all.

I'll say this going in. Not that any movie about gambling addiction is going to be real pleasant, but this is one dark, brooding flick. It starts with Wahlberg's lead performance as Jim Bennett. I was curious how the performance would go, and I came away impressed. Wahlberg is a blue-collar kind of actor, typically playing tough guys, cops, boxers, armed forces, that sort of thing. How about a well-read, intelligent English literature professor? Not exactly a role you'd associate with Wahlberg, but I thought he did an excellent job as Professor Bennett. This is one sad sack of a character, beaten down by the world even though it appears he's been given no real reason to be so downbeat. Maybe the best compliment is that Wahlberg isn't just being a tough guy. He gets to show off his acting chops and doesn't disappoint. Big shoes to fill playing a part James Caan played, but Wahlberg is excellent.

As for the movie itself, I similarly liked it a lot. It's a remake, but thankfully not a scene for scene remake. With a script from William Monahan (The Departed, London Boulevard) that uses the original screenplay as a jumping off point, the new 'Gambler' has some similarities but tries to carve out a niche for itself. It works. The story is different. Wyatt does a good job stylizing the story without going overboard. Title cards count down the days to Bennett's payment deadline. The soundtrack features a good mix of the score from Jon Brion and Theo Green with an eclectic mix of actual sounds with everyone from M83 to a Radiohead cover to Cole Porter and a lot in between. It isn't a flashy visual movie, but you look back and think it's definitely a visually interesting movie.

Much like the 1974 version, the 2014 remake features a strong ensemble cast. The best part goes to John Goodman as Frank, a physically massive, intimidating bear of a loan shark. His scenes with Wahlberg's Bennett are the highlights, Frank giving a great speech about the power of money in everyone's life. Kenneth Williams is similarly very good (read = intimidating and frightening) with Alvin Ing rounding out all the possible loan sharks. Brie Larson plays Amy, one of Bennett's students who has a natural feeling for writing, an excellent supporting part. Oh, and Jessica Lange is very strong as Roberta, Jim's mother who's at the end of her string with her gambling addicted son. Also look for Andre Braugher, Domenick Lombardozzi, George Kennedy, Richard Schiff and Emory Cohen in some other key supporting parts.

Watching a man struggle through the depths of his gambling addiction, it's a frightening, fascinating picture. The gambling scenes are intense and uncomfortable as they're intended to be. We see the highs and lows, the ups and downs with a man who is up enough to pay off his debts only to see him continue to bet as he feels that winning high. That crazy adrenaline rush. There are flaws, and I thought the ending tapped the brakes far too much. There was a natural ending about three minutes earlier that would have been perfect in the open-ended finale department. As is, it's a finale that is a little too tidy. You know what though? I really liked this remake throughout. Well worth checking out.

The Gambler (2014): ***/****

The Omen (2006)

It's that time of the year again. Time for candy, costumes, Halloween and horror movies. I've never been a fan of horror movies -- it's easy enough to scare me -- but there are exceptions. One of my favorites is one of the creepiest, scariest flicks ever, 1976's The Omen. I love it, love all of it. But 1976 is what....like almost 40 years old, right? Let's pointlessly remake it!!! Here's 2006's The Omen.

A rising star in politics, Robert Thorn (Liev Schreiber) and his wife, Kate (Julia Stiles), are expecting a child but there are complications during the birth and the baby dies. A priest at the hospital tells Robert something though. A mother died giving birth the same night, but her infant son survived. With Kate having experienced some serious medical issues in getting pregnant, Robert agrees to take the child as their own...without telling Kate. Robert continues to rise through the political ranks -- even becoming the United States ambassador to England -- as their son, Damien, grows up. As the boy gets older though, Kate begins to notice a string of odd incidents plaguing the boy from a shocking death of his nanny to other extremely difficult things to explain. Robert is stunned when a panicked priest hits him with a revelation. He believes Damien is the son of the Devil, the Antichrist. There's no way it could be true, right?

So why remake the original The Omen? Well, other than the money. As near as I can find out through some Internet digging, it was for a gimmick. The 2006 Omen was released on June 6, 2006 at 6:06.06 in the morning. In other words? lots of 666, the number of the beast. Yeah, yeah, it is a cool gimmick but seriously? Making a movie so it could be released on the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year? Come on now. You've gotta come up with something better than that. It did okay in theaters, getting mostly negative reviews but still making $120 million at the box office. If you are going to make a remake of a classic, you should try something new. Do something different.

And that's where we sit. Director John Moore is at the lead of a horror flick that doesn't do much at all to differentiate from the 1976 original. There are a couple changes -- some nightmares for Kate, a reliance on bright, vivid colors to foreshadow impending doom -- but as a whole, this is an almost scene-for-scene remake of the original. The story is virtually identical, whole scenes of dialogue are repeated, and the biggest difference ends up being how certain characters are dispatched (in Final Destination mode). It's creepy, unsettling and legitimately scary at different points with several very good jump out of your seat moments. But...if you've seen the original, you've seen this movie. Some minor differences overall, but mostly, this is the same film.

How about some casting? Liev Schreiber is one of my favorite actors around, and he's got some big shoes to fill here playing the Gregory Peck part. He's got the best performance in this horror remake, an underplayed part focused on the extreme disbelief of the news he receives about his son. No father wants to believe his son/daughter is evil or bad, much less the Antichrist himself. Stiles doesn't come off as well, a performance that is missing something. It feels forced and overdone. Young Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick is very creepy as the possibly evil Damien, his cold, icy stares putting him firmly in the 'Creepy Kids in Movies' department. Also look for David Thewlis as Jennings, a photographer who may know the truth about Damien, Mia Farrow as Miss Baylock, Damien's sinister nanny, Pete Postlethwaite as Father Brennan, a possibly unhinged priest, and Michael Gambon as Bugenhagen, an archaeologist and exorcist.

Look, as I mentioned, this isn't a bad movie. Far from it. It's professionally done, creepy, unsettling and genuinely scary. The score isn't as good, not quite as memorable as Jerry Goldsmith's original score, but the look of the movie is solid. Dark, gloomy, rainy and foreboding, it does add a dimension to the Satanic story. There was no reason to remake it though, especially if the new version is going to stick so close to its predecessor. Maybe viewers unfamiliar with the 1976 original will enjoy it more. I didn't dislike it, but it's okay at best and not much more.

The Omen (2006): **/****

The Truth About Charlie

Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, a very cool supporting cast, Paris locations and a mysterious story that keeps you guess throughout. The movie...1963's Charade. Nothing is sacred though in Hollywood so while I'm not exactly timely with this criticism, here's an unnecessary remake that is basically really bad on all accounts, 2002's The Truth About Charlie.

Returning home a vacation on a tropical island, Regina Lambert (Thandie Newton) walks into her Paris apartment stunned at what she finds. The whole place has been ransacked and little remains but two detectives have been waiting for her. Why? Her husband of just a few months, Charles (Stephen Dillane), has been found dead, apparently murdered. The husband she thought she knew apparently was holding onto some deep, dark secrets, and that past is coming after Regina now. She begins to see people following her and has no idea what they're after. There seems to be one person on her side, a mysterious stranger, Josh Peters (Mark Wahlberg), who appears to be trying to help her. What was her husband actually into? Can Regina figure it out before she gets pulled in too deep? Time is quickly running out as her husband's enemies close in.

It's been several years since I saw Charade for the first time. Is it an all-time classic? No, but looking back on it, I know I liked it for all the right reasons. It's goofy at times, dark at others, and entertaining throughout. But almost 40 years later? Eh, no one really has a memory for anything older than a couple days so we might as well remake all those classics, near-classics and just really good movies from Hollywood's past. So yeah, Charade isn't perfect, but it wasn't missing that special something that screamed out "REMAKE ME!" So why remake it? Words fail me at this point. Director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia) helms a movie that was critically panned and made barely $7 million in theaters. Let's jump in!

The reasons for struggles are pretty much across the board. A refusal to pick a tone, all style and no substance, the waste of a decent script, and some really interesting but mostly bad cases of casting. Mark Wahlberg is one of my favorite actors, but this was not a part that was cut out for him. He's playing the Cary Grant part. That's all I'm going to say about that. Mostly, the character's main goal seems to make Wahlberg look goofy. He wears a turtleneck almost the entire movie and also favors either a fedora or a very masculine beret. Yeah, that's self-explanatory in its badness. Thankfully he has decent chemistry with the very talented, very beautiful Thandie Newton. The duo makes the most of their time together on-screen, but neither delivers an especially good performance. Their fault? Director? Script? Probably a mix of all three.

The characters are just too stupid for their own good. Once Newton's Regina finds out she's in deeper than she thought, she never really questions what the mysterious Peters is up to. How does he always end up in the right place at the right time? Who's with her? Who's against her? She's perpetually frantic but never puts it all together. So who else to look for? The always sinister (when he wants to be) Tim Robbins plays Bartholamew, an American government agent/official offering his help to Regina. Ted Levine, LisaGay Hamilton and Joong-Hoon Park are three mysterious strangers tailing Regina, apparently from her dead husband's checkered and secret past. Also worth mentioning is Christine Boisson and Simon Abkarian as two Parisian detectives investigating the case.

The biggest handicapper for me was the choice of style over substance. 'Truth' never picks a tone or finds a rhythm and sticks with it. Demme's style is aggressive and unnecessary, the camera always off center and slightly ajar, characters directly addressing the camera. The mystery of what's going on should be better than it is, but that mystery gets lost in a maze of double-crosses and surprises and twists that don't work. Bad is one thing -- to be fair -- but surreal in its badness is another thing. French singer Charles Aznavour makes two appearances as himself, simply appearing and singing as if he was part of the action. The cast looks at him adoringly, the extras look on in confused fashion. Weird is fine. Weird for weirdness' sake is another not so fine reason.

My favorite stylistic choice is a tango scene. Regina dances with...well, everyone, all of the suspects and strangers passing her around a dance floor. At no point does she question why all these people are together. It's a choice that I'm assuming is meant to stylistically WOW but it goes the opposite way to the point I was groaning, even laughing at the scene. That's the entire movie. Give this one a wide berth and go revisit the original Charade instead.

The Truth About Charlie (2002): */****

Red Dawn (2012)

Unnecessary Remake No. 1,839, and away we go. Released in 1984, Red Dawn is a classic flick that is a pretty good example of what a really good and oh so bad 1980s movie can be. So 28 years later, enough time has passed. Right? Let's remake it for no apparent reason other than money!!! Brace yourself for 2012's painfully bad Red Dawn.

The world, she is a-changing as a heavily militarized North Korea and Russia begin to take advantage of a struggling economy in Asia, Europe and eventually across the world. American troops are being deployed internationally, leaving the states vulnerable to attack. In Spokane, U.S. Army soldier Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth) is home on leave visiting his family when the U.S. is actually attacked and invaded by North Korean forces. As parachutes rain down and planes unleash bomb after bomb, Jed manages to escape into the mountains with his younger brother, Matt (Josh Peck), and a small group of teenagers. At first, Jed's crew is content to just hide in the mountains and survive, but the North Koreans come looking for them, including killing Jed and Matt's father (Brett Cullen) right in front of them. Using his military training, Jed teaches them how to shoot, fight and kill (DRAMA!), taking the attack to the North Koreans. America! Wolverines!

This movie was doomed a bit from the start. It was actually filmed in 2009 and originally scheduled to be released in 2010. Studio problems and backing wreaked havoc, and ta-da! It was released in November 2012 to awful reviews and a pretty lukewarm response at the box office. The biggest issue is that there's absolutely no point to the movie in the least. The 1984 original was timely (if cheesy), dealing with very current issues at the end of the Cold War. A Russian invasion of the states? Far-fetched, sure, but still creepy. Well now we're having issues with North Koreans (originally written in the script as the Chinese, dropped so it could be released in China. Yeah money!) so they invade? If you're going to do a remake, pick a lousy movie that needs to be remade. If you're just doing it for the sake of doing it ($), then at least throw something new at us! Try a tweak here, a twist there. Nice work director Dan Bradley.

The 2012 remake starts off interestingly enough. The invasion scene is pretty cool, unsettling and exciting as paratroopers descend from the sky on a lazy Saturday morning. Jed and Matt head for the hills amid chaos in Spokane, gunshots and explosions all around them. From there, it degenerates into one cliched, overdone scene after another. All characterization has been stripped away -- making the original look like a masterpiece in character study -- to the point where Jed's crew of spunky resistance fighters are a faceless, nameless sea of teenage mediocrity. More than that, it's just stupid. How is an entire North Korean army not able to find a group of teenagers hiding in the mountains? Do they not have technology available to them? How do the Wolverines manage to sneak in and out of heavily guarded Spokane pretty much at will?

I'll get the minor positives out of the way here. Not yet a star when the movie was made in 2010, Hemsworth is a solid lead. The script does him no favors, but he's very watchable, making the most of his poorly written part that requires him to be gruff and squint. In a too little, too late part, Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Sgt. Andrew Tanner, a Marine sent to work with the Wolverines and help take down a North Korean secret weapon. It's a wasted part -- around 10-15 minutes actually on-screen -- but a nice tweak on the Powers Boothe part in the original Red Dawn. Will Yun Lee plays Captain Cho, the North Korean district commander who says six words and glares at Hemsworth's Jed from afar with a menacing look. No background (or dialogue for that matter) or humanization, just foreboding looks.

One part almost single-handedly ruins the movie, and that honor goes to Peck as Matt Eckert. A former Nickelodeon star on Drake and Josh. All grown up and thinned out, Peck delivers a truly awful performance. Something seems to be going on with his eyes that ends up being distracting in a big way. Mostly though, he smiles awkwardly, mumbles a lot, growls in a scratchy voice when he's loud enough to understand and pouts like an 8-year old. Oh, and as for the iconic 'Wolverines!' cry, it's never explained, just screamed. It's the high school mascot, but they just assume we know that having seen the original. The other Wolverines include Josh Hutcherson so full of hate -- kinda -- because his parents are dead, Hemsworth love interest Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas as Matt's girlfriend, Connor Cruise as the mayor's son, Edwin Hodge as Matt's black friend, and Alyssa Diaz and Julian Alcaraz as out of town teenagers.

I figured if nothing else the action would be good here, and it ain't bad to be fair. It ain't good though either. While exciting, much of it is edited so quickly and features the handheld running camera routine that cripples just about any action movie ever. With a movie that's just 93 minutes long, everything is stripped down to a bare minimum. Background, characters, actual human interaction, it all gets tossed out the window. This was an awful movie. Go back to the original. Patrick Swayze is cooler than ever.

Red Dawn (2012): */****      

Cairo

From director John Huston, 1950's The Asphalt Jungle is one of the all-time great film noirs, a heist flick with a great cast and story. It was inevitable, wasn't it? Yes......a remake, even if it is a little known remake. Some 13 years later with the location transplanted to Egypt, we get 1963's Cairo.

Released from a German prison after a long sentence, a man known only as the Major (George Sanders) arrives in Cairo with a new plan. He's been working on all the intricate details to pull off a dangerous if very lucrative job at the Cairo Museum, stealing the King Tut diamonds. The Major needs some help though and has to get some funding and backing from a respected if somewhat shady businessman/lawyer, Kuchuk (Walter Rilla), who has plans of his own with the diamonds. Putting his plan into action, the Major assembles a small team of specialists and crooks, including enforcer Ali (Richard Johnson). Everything is seemingly worked out to the last second, but no matter how much planning has been done, there's always something surprising waiting.

I'm going to sound like quite the movie hypocrite here because usually I'm completely against remakes. Did Huston's Asphalt Jungle really need to be remade? Nope, not in the least. It's basically perfect as is. Just the same, 13 years later here comes this almost scene-for-scene remake based off of W.R. Burnett's source novel. It simply isn't necessary so if you've seen Huston's version, you've seen this movie. Director Wolf Rilla (son of star Walter Rilla) does a solid if unspectacular job with his version, and it's entertaining throughout. It's a tad shorter than 'Asphalt,' clocking in at 91 minutes as opposed to 112 minutes, and it does feel a little rushed at times. Kenneth Jones' score is good without being intrusive. And maybe it was just the aged quality of a 1963 movie, but the shadowy, dark look of the movie is a nice touch.

The only difference between the two movies is the setting, and that's probably the biggest selling point for Cairo. Credit to director Rilla for shooting on-location in Cairo rather than a Hollywood-like Cairo set. The story moves along and develops on the Egyptian streets, Sanders, Johnson and the cast walking around with the population and not in front of a green screen. It's a simple thing, but it goes a long way toward giving a familiar story something memorable when you've seen everything else. The location include the more obvious ones like the Cairo Museum and the Pyramids, but it's cool just to see these places, even if it is in the background. Then there's the less familiar locations, the back alleys and streets, not to mention the desert roads and oasis' in the Egyptian countryside.

Beyond the first two or three stars listed in the cast, 'Cairo' features a predominantly Egyptian cast so for the most part, there is far less star power here than in 'Asphalt.' I liked Sanders a lot as the Major, a mysterious thief with no real explained background. He's an English gentleman, prim, proper and mannered who has a knack for pulling off difficult jobs. His character is more prominent than his 'Asphalt' counterpart. Besides the odd choice of casting the very English Johnson as a very Egyptian character, Johnson does a fine job as Ali, the enforcer who wants nothing more than return to his childhood farm but gambling problems have derailed those plans. He has an on-again, off-again relationship with Amina (Faten Hamama), a singer/dancer working in cheap clubs, helping humanize the tough character. As the biggest name stars, Sanders and Johnson get the majority of development and screentime, and they don't disappoint. It's a solid, natural chemistry among two very different men drawn together for a job.

The rest of the Major's crew includes Willy (John Meillon), a WWII vet who specializes in explosives and safecracking, Kerim (Ahmed Mazhar), the coffee house owner doubling as the getaway driver, and Nicodemos (Eric Pohlmann), the Major's link to everything in the criminal underworld and black market. Rilla too is solid as Kuchuk, the shady financier of the Major's plan with his own intentions. Salah Nazmi plays the police commandant hunting the thieves.

Here we are again, the actual heist. Pulling off the job is a good extended sequence, if not quite as complicated as it would seem according to the plan. Like so many heist films, the best is saved for last; the fall-out following the heist. As is so often the case, it's not the job that's the most difficult part. It is getting away with it and dealing with the inevitable double-crosses and betrayals. The post-heist fallout sticks close to 'Asphalt,' but it is full of tension and develops nicely. This 1963 remake is unnecessary, not adding anything new to the formula other than the Cairo setting, but it is entertaining throughout. Sometimes that's all that counts. Watch a slightly edited, shorter version HERE at Youtube.

Cairo (1963): ** 1/2 /****

The Gun Runners

One of my biggest complaints about movies over the last 10 or so years is the overwhelming use of remakes.  Older movies are being updated, TV shows are being turned into movies, basically anything that's been proven successful in the past is being used repeatedly.  And really why not?  Why think of new creative, unique ideas when you can just reuse something from the past?  It seems more prevalent now, but remakes are as old as movies themselves.

Take 1958's The Gun Runners which is based on an Ernest Hemingway novel from 1937, To Have and Have Not.  Using Hemingway is nothing new to say the least, and this B-movie came just 14 years removed from the Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall vehicle and only eight years removed from another remake made in 1950 starring John Garfield.  They all deal with the same story, but it's fair to say this is a remake of a remake...and not a particularly good one at that.

With his midsize fishing boat off the coast of Florida, captain Sam Martin (Audie Murphy) who with his drunken first mate Harvey (Everett Sloane) takes tourists out for fishing trips, but he isn't too successful at it.  He's months behind on payments for his boat with no real sign of money starting to flow in.  One day, an American tourist enlists Sam's services to take him and a lady friend out onto the Gulf where he brings up a proposition.  He'd like to go to Cuba -- in the midst of a revolution -- for a night where no one would bother him, and he'll pay well to get what he wants.  The man's name is Hannigan (Eddie Albert), and he's not telling Sam everything.  He's an arms dealer and has an arrangement for a large inbound shipment for the rebel fighters.  Sam catches wind of the plan though and isn't going to go along willingly, but Hannigan has an ace up his sleeve.

Setting the story in southern Florida with detours over to Cuba is almost always a good idea in hopes of bringing up some controversy, even now 40 years later where the wet-foot, dry foot policy still remains with Cubans trying to escape to the U.S.  But even with veteran tough guy director Don Siegel at the helm, this B-movie lacks a certain energy.  There are long scenes of dialogue that don't really go anywhere, and the dynamics between characters is downright dull at times.

In the lead, Murphy takes off the gunbelt and cowboy hat and replaces it with a silly-looking captain's hat which he keeps on for almost the whole movie.  I'm trying to think of an actor Murphy could be compared to, but I'm drawing a blank.  I'll say this; he's a poor man's somebody.  The real-life WWII hero made a movie career that saw him typically in B-westerns so it is refreshing to see a change of pace here.  But like so much of the movie, his character is boring.  He loves his wife (Patricia Owens) but their relationship lacks any fireworks. He looks out for drunken Harvey but why is he so protective?   It's a nice enough character who you know in the end will make the right decision, but that's part of the problem.  Sam Martin is about as interesting to watch as a drunken Harvey sleeping one off.

It's odd looking back on some actors' careers for how they're remembered.  Albert is generally remembered as the star of the very stupid but very popular TV sitcom Green Acres, but I always think of him as playing a bad guy, and a good one at that.  He was perfectly evil in The Longest Yard and Attack!, and he's one of few bright spots here.  As Hannigan, Albert is charming and slimy at the same time, the kind of villain you love to root against.  He'll deal with whoever has the most money, principals or morals be damned.  The rest of the cast features Richard Jaeckel and Jack Elam in small parts where they're required to look menacing and do little else.

Throughout the movie where there should be a physical confrontation or at least a good shouting match, it feels like Siegel and his crew figured a way to keep the process cheap.  I'm betting not a scene -- two at most -- go by before somebody's drinking, and I'm not talking apple juice.  Got a problem? Go to the bar.  Need to meet someone to talk things out?  Go to a bar.  Maybe this movie would be better if I had watched it drunk or at least buzzed.  It's a snoozer with little to recommend other than Eddie Albert's turn as a villain.

The Gun Runners <---clips (1958): * 1/2 /****

Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Certain movies just don't need to remade, plain and simple. Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't remade like the original The Flight of the Phoenix from 1965 starring James Stewart, Richard Attenborough and a really solid supporting cast. It's a minor classic in it's own right and a memorable story of survival in awful conditions. So fast forward almost 40 years, and what do you know, remake!

When it hit theaters in 2004, I was one of the few -- very few, the movie made just over $20 million and was out of theaters in two or three weeks -- who went and saw it. The trailer sucked me in, and it looked like a good old-fashioned adventure movie. Decent cast? Check. Desperate survivor story in exotic location? Double check. Gun-wielding desert nomads? Oh, yes, very much so. Maybe it made a difference, but I hadn't seen the 1965 original when I saw the remake, who knows, but the remake, 2004's Flight of the Phoenix, is definitely worth a watch.

Flying to a desolate oil drilling location in Mongolia, pilot Frank 'Shut it down' Towns (Dennis Quaid) and his co-pilot AJ (Tyrese Gibson) are supposed to pick up all crew and equipment with the well not producing enough results. On-site company rep Ian (Hugh Laurie) never told team leader Kelly (Miranda Otto) the news so the well being shut down is news to her and her crew. Towns takes off heading for home, but the cargo plane runs into a horrific sandstorm that causes him to crash-land hundreds of miles off course in the Gobi desert.

So with enough food and water to last a month if rationed correctly, Towns and the survivors decide to wait for rescue. But after days of no sign of help, one of the survivors, a mysterious man named Elliott (Giovanni Ribisi) who was an airplane designer back home, says they can build a new plane out of the wreckage and fly home, most importantly before their supplies run out. Unwilling at first, Frank decides to go along with the seemingly impossible plan. Can the survivors accomplish the impossible as supplies dwindle?

Where the original went more for the drama in this life-or-death situation, the remake went more for entertainment value. One example? While rebuilding the plane, the survivors dance to Outkast's 'Hey, Ya!' Water be damned! There is the obvious conflict as the group decides what to do, but one thing they can all agree on is that if Elliott wasn't so important, they'd string him up as quick as they could. Credit goes to Ribisi who steals the movie as the arrogant, egomaniacal Elliott as he goes toe-to-toe with Quaid's Towns in a power-struggle. If there was a villain in a story where everyone is supposedly working together, it would be Ribisi.

The biggest differences between the two movies are two additions, Miranda Otto's character (can't have an all-male cast) who is a good add to the cast, and the arrival halfway through the movie of a roving band of gun-wielding smugglers. The smugglers/nomads drop in and out of the story as necessary -- making a key appearance late in the movie -- and do provide the movie's coolest scene, a tension-filled confrontation as Ian, AJ and Rodney (Tony Curran, the tough Scottish roughneck, the coolest survivor) see if they can trade for supplies without knowing if the smugglers intend to you know, kill them. With Massive Attack's Angel providing the sountrack in the scene, it's a shadowy, eerie, beautifully shot scene.

With the script placing certain limitations on characters, the cast does the best they can with what's given. The original, based on a novel by Elleston Trevor, spent a lot of time developing Towns, his co-pilot and the crew. Quaid is as reliable as ever as Joe Everyman, the unwilling leader trying to keep everyone alive, as is Tyrese as his sidekick/co-pilot. Joining Otto and Laurie is Curran, rapper Kirk 'Sticky Fingaz' Jones, Jacob Vargas as the Mexican cook Sammi, Scott Michael Campbell as Liddle, the fella who just wants to see his family, and Kevork Malikyan as Rady, the wise Middle Easterner.

Comparing original to remake is tricky because it's the same basic premise, a pretty ingenious one if you ask me, that goes down a different road in the execution. The original keyed in on story, characters and conflict, and doing it all believably. The remake went more for some action, a few laughs here and there, and some cool if not well-developed characters. The surprising thing is, the original is a better movie, but the remake is more fun to watch.

Flight of the Phoenix <----trailer (2004): ***/****

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Asking movie fans about remakes can be a touchy subject. I tend to agree most of the time that remakes aren't necessary depending on the movie and studios should just come up with new, creative ideas instead of going back to the well repeatedly. On the other hand, I don't get it when fans are against ANY remake. If you don't want to see it, don't. I've rarely gone into a remake thinking, "Hey, I bet this is better than the original." I'm usually looking for an entertaining story with some alterations to the story, casting, whatever. I got that with the new The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.

The original Pelham One Two Three is a cult classic in its own right with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw as the two leads with one big claim to fame, providing inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. So the remake, with bigger names headlining, still had some pretty big shoes to fill. Is it as good as the original? I'll have to think about that, but gut reaction, close but not as good.

The story is the same with a few slight changes. On a New York subway train, Pelham 123, four men led by Ryder (John Travolta) hijack a single car with its 18 passengers. Getting in contact with the Metro Transit Authority headquarters, they make their demands. They want $10 million in one hour or else they will start shooting a passenger for every minute they're late. At the other end of the radio at MTA HQ is Walter Garber (Denzel Washington), a former supervisor demoted to a desk job while under investigation for supposedly taking a bribe. What follows is a cat and mouse game as Ryder and Garber talk back and forth while NY desperately tries to put together the $10 million ransom.

The heist-like premise is a good one that quickly brings up interesting questions. They've hijacked a train, but how will they escape once they get the money? They're underground after all. It's a tense movie as Ryder, either the sanest villain ever or the craziest, I just can't decide, plays mind games with Garber and hostage negotiator Camonetti (John Turturro, good as always). A SWAT team waits at either end of the single car waiting for the order to take down the hijackers while inside the quartet are one push away from blowing away the hostages.

Enough has been changed that director Tony Scott left his mark on the movie to set it apart from the original. There's an element of technology added to the heist as Ryder has a wireless connection to Google his counterpart on the other end of the radio, and the aspect of the stock market comes up. The heist isn't as straightforward as the original with bigger plans at work, but with a reveal of Ryder's identity late in the movie the additions work. Scott's movies are often more known for their style and flash than story, and that's true here to a point, lots of slow motion blurry shots, quick cuts that can be hard to keep up with, but the director doesn't go too far with it.

There's a natural tension in the story that would be hard to mess up from the director's chair. An hour is not a long time, especially when talking about getting $10 million from a bank and then driving it through NY traffic with the time remaining. The mayor (James Gandolfini in a great part) does question at some point, "Why didn't we just use a helicopter?" Because Mr. Mayor, then we couldn't have the cool race through Manhattan as a squad car with motorcycle escort weaves through traffic.

Working with Scott for the fourth time, Washington is the heart of the movie. His Garber character is an everyman, John Smith trying to care for his family, go to work and pay his mortgage and his kids' tuition. It's the type of part that Washington could do with his eyes closed, and he doesn't disappoint. Most of the running time, all Garber can do is talk, desperately trying to stop Ryder or at least slow him down. There's a twist that works to a fault and does come as a surprise because well....he's Denzel Washington. Hamming it up as the villain, Travolta goes too far at times, but for the character his theatrics are appropriate. He's the bad guy you love to hate but can laugh at too with how off the wall some of his comments can be.

'Pelham' is Washington's and Travolta's movie. The rest of the cast makes the most of smaller parts, especially Turturro and Gandolfini, but other than those two parts no one stands out. One of my favorite character actors Luis Guzman is criminally underused in his part as Ramos, one of the four hijackers. The other two hijackers, Victor Gojcaj and Robert Vataj, are intimidating, but I don't even recall hearing their names. The two are characters with automatic weapons, and that's it, but I guess that is what the script called for. Michael Rispoli and Ramon Rodriguez are good in smaller roles as two members of MTA headquarters.

I didn't love the remake like I wanted to, but I did enjoy it. I can chalk up a lot of that to the trailer which really convinced me to see it. The ending is forced a little too much for me, but the build-up makes up for that. So overall, it lived up to my expectations of a remake. Good but not great, and worth a watch. I do recommend seeing the original, if for nothing else than to compare the two. Go see the Pelham remake, if for nothing else than Washington in a great part going toe to toe with villainous Travolta.

Sorcerer

When it comes to remaking a classic movie, the newer picture almost never lives up to expectations. That's one happened at first for William Friedkin's 1977 remake of The Wages of Fear, a classic French film from the 1950s. It opened the same summer as Star Wars (could you have worse timing?) and received a lukewarm response from critics. Now over 30 years later, Sorcerer has slipped through the cracks unfortunately. What makes it worse, the DVD is a major dissappointment, but that's for later.

Not much changes from the 1953 film with the same storyline. The one major addition is how the introductions are handled. The first 30 minutes introduces 4 main characters, all on the run for one reason or another. Jackie Scanlon (Roy Scheider) is a getaway driver on a robbery gone horrifically wrong. A mafioso is hot on his trail looking for revenge. Victor Manzon (Bruno Cremer) is a French banker who discovers 15 million francs are missing from his bank. He's going to take the fall for it unless he can find the money. Nilo (Francisco Rabal) is the most mysterious character as a hitman supposedly hiding from his past, but we never find out why. Kassem (Amidou) is the last surviving member of his tight-knit terrorist cell.

So all running from their problems, the paths of these four men crosses in a desolate, rundown Nicaraguan village. They all want out but have no money or way to leave. A solution presents itself, an incredibly dangerous, almost suicidal one at that. A local oil well needs to be shut down and cleaned out, the only thing that will do the job is nitroglyercin. The catch? Two trucks with two drivers apiece will have to transport the nitro on a 218-mile trip on a bumpy, little-used, washed out road where the slightest bump might set off the explosives.

Sorcerer creates a sense of doom, a building feel of dread like few other movies have. With each bump, each turn of the wheel over a rickety bridge, your stomach drops. Filmed in the Dominican Republic, the movie has a gritty, realistic, almost documentary like feel to it whether its in the villages or winding through the thick jungle roads. The last half hour feels almost apocalyptic as the end of the trip is within reach. Tangerine Dream's electronic score just adds to that feeling of doom and dread. It all builds up to an ending that completely caught me by surprise. It's not quite the downer ending of the original, but Friedkin makes a switch that really works.

The DVD dissappoints, but I've read rumors of a special edition coming out. Don't hold your breath but at least keep it in mind before buying the current disc. The movie is in a grainy-looking fullscreen presentation which actually works, adding to the grittiness of the movie, but I'd like to see the movie in widescreen. Special features are a trailer and some always exciting cast and crew info. It's a great movie though, and should not be missed.

Sorcerer (1977): ****/****